Why is "socialism in one country" impossible whereas capitalism in one country is? [Archive]

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 00:44

Bourgeois revolutions and changes happened in waves, with many fits and starts and counterrevolutions. Elements of the "old regime" persisted even after the rise of capitalism. Isn't the process of building socialism/communism more likely to resemble the same sort of trajectory?
Bourgeois revolutions were political revolutions, not social revolutions. The existence of a bourgeoisie and thus bourgeois social revolutions are the pre-condition of bourgeois revolution, not the result. Proletarian revolution, unlike bourgeois revolution, does not constitute the rise of the revolutionary class to the status of ruling class, but the abolition of the revolutionary class itself.

I mean, the obvious answer is that capitalism in England and subsequently in continental Europe unleashed greater productive capacity and rapid technological change as the means of production were continuously revolutionized.
Which it did while expanding into non-capitalist regions across the globe. (As early as the 16th century, before their own revolution, the English bourgeois were beating primitive capitalist relations into the Irish at gunpoint.) It was not a regional system that extended to other regions only as an afterthought, it was international from the beginning.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 00:52

Question for Trotskyists.

If socialism in one country is an impossibility then why wasn't the same true of capitalism? A great deal of debate is out there about when exactly to pinpoint the beginnings of "capitalism" but clearly it didn't come like an avalanche all around the world at once.

Bourgeois revolutions and changes happened in waves, with many fits and starts and counterrevolutions. Elements of the "old regime" persisted even after the rise of capitalism. Isn't the process of building socialism/communism more likely to resemble the same sort of trajectory?

Is socialism/communism inherently weaker than capitalism and therefore needs to happen in the more industrialized countries in order to be successful?

Why is this question only for Trotskyists? No-one but Stalinists believes socialism is possible in one country (indeed, it's what defines a Stalinist). Marxian Socialists, Left Communists, Council Communists, Anarchists... we all reject socialism in one country.

There are huge differences between capitalism and communism. The most important is that communism is a system without states or classes. What you're suggesting is that states and classes can be abolished, in one place, but not elsewhere. So, states and classes aren't abolished, they still exist. You can't have a system where states and classes are abolished, if they're not abolished.

The second crucial difference is that capitalism is an exploitative system - unlike socialism. Capitalism can co-exist with feudalism because they are both class systems. It's possible for the bourgeoisie to develop in and around feudalism as a new class system. How is socialism to do that? It isn't a new class system, it isn't a new expoitative system, there isn't a proletarian economic power building inside capitalism, because the proletariat has no other classes to exploit. We can't build inside capitalism because all there is is us.

It's got fuck all to do with 'the industrialised countries'. Communism, 100 years ago, would have been just as impossible in England or Holland or America just as it was in Russia, just as it would be in any of those countries individually today. Socialism in one country is impossible, be it ever so developed, because you can't have a non-state state non-class class non-property property system. A thing cannot be the opposite of itself.

Permanent Revolutionary

2nd July 2012, 01:10

Teacher

2nd July 2012, 01:17

Bourgeois revolutions were political revolutions, not social revolutions. The existence of a bourgeoisie and thus bourgeois social revolutions are the pre-condition of bourgeois revolution, not the result.

I agree that major economic and social changes preceded the bourgeoisie seizing political power. I did not mean to imply that the bourgeois revolutions were the beginning of the matter.

Proletarian revolution, unlike bourgeois revolution, does not constitute the rise of the revolutionary class to the status of ruling class, but the abolition of the revolutionary class itself.

Do you not believe that the working class needs to seize power and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat?

Which it did while expanding into non-capitalist regions across the globe. (As early as the 16th century, before their own revolution, the English bourgeois were beating primitive capitalist relations into the Irish at gunpoint.) It was not a regional system that extended to other regions only as an afterthought, it was international from the beginning.

The bourgeoisie did not take control of the entire world economy "from the beginning." It took centuries and especially required the industrial revolution to give them a decisive advantage.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 01:19

Teacher

2nd July 2012, 01:22

Why do people keep posting "questions for Trotskyists" on RevLeft?

I mean, debate is always good, but often it seems like these questions are posed by ML's trying to entrap (for a lack of a better word) Trotskyists. For god's sake the man's contributions to socialism can be found free online at marxists.org. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxists.org)
Read up, people!

I'm not trying to entrap anyone it is just an honest question. I've read a decent amount of what Trotsky had to write and to me he just seemed convinced that the entire enterprise of communism depended on a revolution in Germany.

Permanent Revolutionary

2nd July 2012, 01:35

I'm not trying to entrap anyone it is just an honest question. I've read a decent amount of what Trotsky had to write and to me he just seemed convinced that the entire enterprise of communism depended on a revolution in Germany.

This was the opinion of most of the Old Bolsheviks, Lenin inlcuded.

But what I am irritated about, is that you blurt out a "question to Trotskyists" without giving much context.
Why not quote a statement from Trotsky, where he criticizes SIOC, then you could state where and why you disagree, then you could throw the question over to us, and we could get a real constructive debate going, hopefully.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 01:47

...

In addition I would appreciate if my argument is not refuted with the typical, "You need a world system, " unless you are prepared to define why the world system is necessary...

The world system is not 'necessary', the world system exists. It's called capitalism.

So, capitalism is a world system, that is run by the international bourgeoisie, and produces the international proletariat.

How can an international system be overthrown in only one country? How can countries be abolished, if there are still countries? How can a classless communal society exist, if there are classes and property?

Zav

2nd July 2012, 02:00

The world system is not 'necessary', the world system exists. It's called capitalism.

So, capitalism is a world system, that is run by the international bourgeoisie, and produces the international proletariat.

How can an international system be overthrown in only one country? How can countries be abolished, if there are still countries? How can a classless communal society exist, if there are classes and property?
If there were Capitalist Martians, could we have Communism on Earth? Of course we could. That's because our means of production do not rely on Mars. If a nation (in the sense of people) could produce everything it needed, took care of all its affairs, and managed to defend itself, why couldn't it happen to be Communist? It needn't have a State, nor private property, nor classes, nor be hierarchical in any way. Communism needn't exist everywhere to exist at all.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 02:02

Zav

2nd July 2012, 02:05

Mars might be communist. The Hollow Earth might be communist. Atlantis might be communist.

You're quite right, any fairytale country that has no trade and no interaction with the real world could be communist. How would we know?
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or being an ass. If a place has no economic dependencies with Capitalist nations, then nothing is stopping them from being Communist. That was the point of the hypothetical Capie Martians.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 02:11

Zav

2nd July 2012, 02:19

Yeah... only your point wasn't worth making. 'It is unscientific to suppose a meaningless case' as someone once said.

There is no country that has no economic dependence with capitalist nations - except imaginary ones. So, imaginary countries may be communist on their own, but not real ones.
No, it was indeed worth making. It showed that Communism is indeed not impossible in one area. The fact that the conditions for this do not presently exist is totally irrelevant.
Since the conditions do not exist, it is an impossible concept? Why couldn't a real country eliminate said economic dependencies?

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 02:20

Zav

2nd July 2012, 02:26

How?
Assuming economic independence (and suitable defensive capability), there is nothing preventing an otherwise class-conscious people from forming a Communist society in a small area. Thus it is not impossible. Do you contest this?

jookyle

2nd July 2012, 02:33

I think a lot of the animosity towards SiOC has to do more with a common misunderstanding of the concept. I think a lot of people have the notion that it means some type of isolation of a socialist country and taking an anti-internationalist stance. Which just isn't true. Hell, whether you like Stalin or not you can't deny he was an internationalist. All it really is is a tactic to strengthen the capabilities of a country with a socialist system. You can't exactly start spreading the revolution to the world when your own country is hardly standing on it's own two feet.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 02:52

The world system is not 'necessary', the world system exists. It's called capitalism.

So, capitalism is a world system, that is run by the international bourgeoisie, and produces the international proletariat.

How can an international system be overthrown in only one country? How can countries be abolished, if there are still countries? How can a classless communal society exist, if there are classes and property?

You are right that the stateless aspect of socialism is impossible in anything other than the entire world, but the destruction of the bourgiose class, the liberation of oppressed sexualities and races, the concentration of resources into the hands of the former proletarians, and the organization of distribution operated communally are not impossible in a single country. Perhaps they are unlikely if the region lacks sufficient resources or if the state lacks credible defense but they are absolutely possible if these things are present.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 02:59

Assuming economic independence (and suitable defensive capability)...

No.

How?

As in, 'how are economic independence (and suitable defensive capability) to be acheived?'

You tell me how it's possible, and I'll tell you whether I agree with you. You can't get me to agree with you by saying 'just assume I'm right; now, do you agree with me?'

I think a lot of the animosity towards SiOC has to do more with a common misunderstanding of the concept. I think a lot of people have the notion that it means some type of isolation of a socialist country and taking an anti-internationalist stance. Which just isn't true. Hell, whether you like Stalin or not you can't deny he was an internationalist. All it really is is a tactic to strengthen the capabilities of a country with a socialist system. You can't exactly start spreading the revolution to the world when your own country is hardly standing on it's own two feet.

I deny that he was an internationalist.

You are right that the stateless aspect of socialism is impossible in anything other than the entire world, but the destruction of the bourgiose class, the liberation of oppressed sexualities and races, the concentration of resources into the hands of the former proletarians, and the organization of distribution operated communally are not impossible in a single country. Perhaps they are unlikely if the region lacks sufficient resources or if the state lacks credible defense but they are absolutely possible if these things are present.

The bourgeoisie is an international class - how can you abolish it in one place? That's like curing yourself of blood poisoning, but only in one toe.

The 'former' proletarians are still proletarians. You haven't abolished capitalism (though you may have locked up or maybe just dispossessed some capitalists) or the state. This is not socialism.

Book O'Dead

2nd July 2012, 03:08

I deny that he [Stalin] was an internationalist.

Worse than that. He turned his back on the Greeks when they attempted their revolution. Also, he violated the right of self-determination of the Hungarian people when he overthrew their government in 1956.

Almost everything Stalin did was opposite or undermined international solidarity among workers.

Zav

2nd July 2012, 03:15

No.

How?

As in, 'how are economic independence (and suitable defensive capability) to be acheived?'

You tell me how it's possible, and I'll tell you whether I agree with you. You can't get me to agree with you by saying 'just assume I'm right; now, do you agree with me?'

You should have specified what you wanted explained.

They are achieved thusly:
1. Produce within the country all that is consumed by the people within and halt material trade.
2. Form a large volunteer militia and train everyone in it to be excellent warriors.
3. ???
4. Communism!!!

"How?" is not a very specific question. You should have asked in the first place how economic independence and a suitable defense were to be achieved. One could easily assume that you asked how these things allow Communism to exist within one country, as I did.

Teacher

2nd July 2012, 03:44

Let's say the communists in Greece took power in a revolution. What should they do? Invade Germany? Do the non-rich countries have to simply sit around and wait for the industrialized world to go communist since it is pointless for them to try to build socialism in their own countries?

Lucretia

2nd July 2012, 03:48

Capitalism was possible in one country only for the early period when the forces of production were still rudimentary. It is not possible now. And neither is socualism, for the very same reason: the forces have developed to the point where there is a global division of labor. Socialism was not possible in the early years of capitalism -the time when capitalism in one country was possible - for the simple reason that the material basis did not yet exist.

At a more abstract level, as others have mentioned -- capitalism as an economic system is compatible with a variety of political forms, whereas socialism requires collective and democratic rule by the workers, something which is rendered impossible in a global system dominated by rival political states aiming to clear the way for capitalist expansion. Not just because this threatens workers states only from the outside, but because it will profoundly affect how decisions within the country will have to be made.

Geiseric

2nd July 2012, 04:11

History proved that SioC is impossible. Every state that had a Stalinist degeneration is now capitalist, even north korea's state sells their workers like cattle to foreign russian and chinese work camps, as well as free trade zones in NK. You lack even a fundamental understanding of marxist economics if you think that an island of socialism can exist in a world run for profit. The flow of resources is worldwide, and also nobody will buy anything from this "socialist," country unless it abandons its revolutionary ambitions, as we saw with the N.E.P. and subsequent deals made with fascists after the comintern was made useless by the stalinists.

shinjuku dori

2nd July 2012, 07:46

Which it did while expanding into non-capitalist regions across the globe. (As early as the 16th century, before their own revolution, the English bourgeois were beating primitive capitalist relations into the Irish at gunpoint.) It was not a regional system that extended to other regions only as an afterthought, it was international from the beginning.

Indeed. We can even say it rose from global commerce! And socialism will rise from global economy. You can't make socialism in one country for same reason you can't make it in one city or one apartment building or one bathtub.

Zav

2nd July 2012, 08:02

Indeed. We can even say it rose from global commerce! And socialism will rise from global economy. You can't make socialism in one country for same reason you can't make it in one city or one apartment building or one bathtub.
The Federation of Bathtub Communes declares you an enemy of the Revolution!:mad:

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 10:32

Do you not believe that the working class needs to seize power and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat?
I do not believe that the dictatorship of the proletariat is itself a form of socialism, if that's what you're asking.

The bourgeoisie did not take control of the entire world economy "from the beginning." It took centuries and especially required the industrial revolution to give them a decisive advantage.
The point isn't that they took total control of all economic affairs, but that bourgeois production was always integrated into international markets.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

2nd July 2012, 10:34

Worse than that. He turned his back on the Greeks when they attempted their revolution. Also, he violated the right of self-determination of the Hungarian people when he overthrew their government in 1956.

Almost everything Stalin did was opposite or undermined international solidarity among workers.

He died in 1953!

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 10:36

And I'm sure if he had been alive, he would have left Hungary to their own devices. Invading other countries just wasn't his thing.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

2nd July 2012, 10:39

And I'm sure if he had been alive, he would have left Hungary to their own devices. Invading other countries just wasn't his thing.

Speculation. I rather discuss the things he actually did, instead of the things you think he might could've done if he lived a few years longer.

Omsk

2nd July 2012, 10:46

Worse than that. He turned his back on the Greeks when they attempted their revolution. Also, he violated the right of self-determination of the Hungarian people when he overthrew their government in 1956.

Achh.

The "right of self-determination" here can't be found, because the only ones who wanted to "change the leadership" (Party.) were the Moscow revisionists and Hungarian nationalists, in Budapest. The workers outside of Hungary didn't care too much.

The entire "revolution" was something probably organized by the anti-ML's in Yugoslavia, Hungary and the USSR, and the objective was to remove the Hungarian communists and Matyas Rakosi, and replace them with people like Kadar. And Imre Nagy was the best man for the job, an anti-communist himself.

Hungarian event of shame.

Almost everything Stalin did was opposite or undermined international solidarity among workers.

Yes, like when he invaded those poor reformists in Prague in 1968.....

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 11:10

Speculation. I rather discuss the things he actually did, instead of the things you think he might could've done if he lived a few years longer.
So instead of talking about the hypothetical imposition of an anti-working class regime in Hungary, you'd rather talk about the actual imposition of an anti-working class regime in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Hungary (the first time round)? Fair dos, I suppose, fair dos.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 11:11

You should have specified what you wanted explained.

They are achieved thusly:
1. Produce within the country all that is consumed by the people within and halt material trade.
2. Form a large volunteer militia and train everyone in it to be excellent warriors.
3. ???
4. Communism!!!...

OK. Your Anarcho-Syndicalist Psychic Unicorn Militia has overthrown the evil Feudalo-Capitailist Witch Queen and freed Narnia, and established it as an independant state.

Now show me which country that really exists can do the same thing. A tiny, heavily industrialised country that imports loads, like Britain? I don't think so. How about the opposite? A massive, resource rich country that is begining industrialisation, perhaps. Like... ooh, Russia in 1917 maybe. How did that work out?

I really do find it amusing when so-called Anarchists argue like Stalinists.

Did I say amusing? I meant sickening.

...

"How?" is not a very specific question. You should have asked in the first place how economic independence and a suitable defense were to be achieved. One could easily assume that you asked how these things allow Communism to exist within one country, as I did.

Only if one believes that they are possible. How can I possibly predict your absurd logic? You may believe we live in a fantasy world where magic is real, but 'well I can't be blamed if you don't believe that dragons can help us overthrow the bourgeoisie, perpetual motion machines will give us all the power that we need, and dolphins will farm the sea-bed for us in a rainbow fantasia of interspecies cosmic harmony and fluffiness' is hardly a convincing argument.

If you don't start from what is actually real and possible then I don't think I need waste my time on any more of your contributions.

Let's say the communists in Greece took power in a revolution. What should they do? Invade Germany? Do the non-rich countries have to simply sit around and wait for the industrialized world to go communist since it is pointless for them to try to build socialism in their own countries?

Yeah, because invading Poland in 1920 worked out really well, didn't it?

It has nothing to do with 'the rich countries/industrialised world', and nothing to do with 'the communists' either. If the working class took power in Germany, they wouldn't be able to institute communism until the working class in Greece and everywhere else had overthrown the capitalist state too.

Zealot

2nd July 2012, 11:41

After realising the absurdity of claiming that Stalin somehow resurrected himself in 1956 to crush a revolt, they attempt to save face by saying that Stalin would have done that. The anti-Marxists on this forum think that they get a free pass to mangle history. Very amusing indeed.

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 11:52

So you're you saying that you would have opposed the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and supported the Nagy government? Revisionist.

electrostal

2nd July 2012, 11:55

I seriously LOL'd hard.:lol:
Stalin crushing the Hungarian revolution and so on.
It's surprising how ignorant some of the people here are. I mean, that Stalin died in 1953 is elementary-school history.

Zealot

2nd July 2012, 12:03

So you're you saying that you would have opposed the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and supported the Nagy government? Revisionist.

Which is assuming that the Hungarian revolt would have still taken place had Stalin been alive. Seriously, nice idealism.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 12:19

The concept of the international bourgiose still has not been adequately defended. The blood poisoning analogy is totally irrelevant and doesn't support the argument whatsoever. A better analogy would be if a forest is on fire, you can extinguish the fires of one or several trees even if you are unable to extinguish the whole fire. Granted the fire will spread back to the trees if they lack necessary materials to survive, and protection from the fire, but if these two elements are present then the trees remain to be free of the fires.

A capitalist is distinguished by their relation to production. There relation is that of the owner of resources which they employ workers to produce commodities from. Expalin to me how to eliminate one capitalist you have to eliminate them all?

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 12:22

Which is assuming that the Hungarian revolt would have still taken place had Stalin been alive. Seriously, nice idealism.
That word, keep using, what you think it means, blah blah blah.

shinjuku dori

2nd July 2012, 12:28

shinjuku dori

2nd July 2012, 13:30

Stalin lover never understand. Socialism in one country is not problem about taking care of social tasks within some borders.

"Socialism in one country" as official policy of Stalin, enunciated by Bukharin, was abandonment of worldwide communist revolution. It was signal to capitalist world that they would not be attacked. It was earliest version of "peaceful coexistence".

Suddenly, communism was not wave to wash away capitalism, but island to float in its sea.

But there can be no socialist island. So it was abandoning socialism completely!

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 14:43

The concept of the international bourgiose still has not been adequately defended...

I don't need to defend it. You need to demonstrate that it's not true, by for example demonstrating that Russian oligarchs do not own businesses and houses in London, capital doesn't move around the world as fast as a computer signal, there are no multinational corporations, etc etc. Should be fairly easy for you to do, if you're right.

... The blood poisoning analogy is totally irrelevant and doesn't support the argument whatsoever. A better analogy would be if a forest is on fire, you can extinguish the fires of one or several trees even if you are unable to extinguish the whole fire...

If you like. When the fire spreads back to the tree that you just dampened, because the fire is massive and your one wet tree is very small, your tree will burn again. Take that metaphor for what capitalism does if you like. An isolated proletarian revolution cannot survive. It must spread (more trees must be soaked) or capitalism will re-assert itself, just as a forest fire must be put out completely or it rises up again.

... Granted the fire will spread back to the trees if they lack necessary materials to survive, and protection from the fire, but if these two elements are present then the trees remain to be free of the fires...

There's no such thing though, either for trees or countries. See my argument with Zav about Narnia. If you believe magic pixies will help with the revolution, good for you. I don't; if it's impossible I don't consider it worthwhile expending my brainpower on.

... A capitalist is distinguished by their relation to production. There relation is that of the owner of resources which they employ workers to produce commodities from. Expalin to me how to eliminate one capitalist you have to eliminate them all?

I think Sinjuku Dori has dealt with this. 'Eliminating capitalists' isn't the point, which is specifically why I mentioned about 10 posts ago the idea that you can kill or imprison a capitalist, but that doesn't get rid of capitalism.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 15:47

Yes Russian oligarchs own property in London. How does this reinforce your argument? If their is a revolution in Britain, and not in Russia, the property will be seized regardless. Sure this will damage diplomatic relations with Russia, but the eventual goal will be to overthrow the existing regime anyway so this is of little importance.

As for your challenge that there isn't a place with sufficient resources to establish a society possessing a majority of socialist characteristics, whatsbout south America?

There is a tremendous wealth of natural resources within south America, as well as a large population that could serve to stand in the regions defense. Remember no one here is arguing for socialism in a small nation or islands, it isnjust being suggested that a society which possesses a majority of socialist characteristics can be established regionally rather than worldwide.

I don't know if this clears anything up, but I do support the continued agitation of revolution within other nations, but in the mean time I don't think that the States which have already won there independence cannot begin to enjoy the benefits that the revolution had promised.

aty

2nd July 2012, 15:48

Capital needs to constantly expand, grow and find new markets. It is a revolutionary force and will try to break down any barriers that stands in its way. If it cant expand it cant grow and capital have to grow or it will produce severe crisis.

The only one who can stop the logic of capital is the working class. Capital can in the long run never win totally once and forever, because it produces and depends on the subject(the working class) which will bring its destruction.

Book O'Dead

2nd July 2012, 16:04

Zealot

2nd July 2012, 16:07

"Socialism in one country" as official policy of Stalin, enunciated by Bukharin, was abandonment of worldwide communist revolution. It was signal to capitalist world that they would not be attacked. It was earliest version of "peaceful coexistence".

So, we spread Socialism by attacking countries and forcing it on everyone? Peaceful co-existence was the Khrushchevite line. Stalin was ready to support Socialist revolutions in other countries, and he did.

Geiseric

2nd July 2012, 16:17

You can't have socialism in one country if capitalists are fucking pissed off after you stole their capital. The french bourgeois had the largest amount of the capital in Russia, thus they were often one of the biggest supporters of the white guards and the czarist brigands. Unless say you save the liberal french government by entering into a popular front when the working class is pushing for revolution (which Stalin told the french communists to do, fucking menshevik) the french bourgeois will always be pissed at the U.S.S.R. apply that for EVERY country in europe in relation to the U.S.S.R. and you have the history of Stalinist comintern. in 1923, when the german working class was experiancing a revolutionary phase, the KPD allied with the SPD (Freikorps was 5 years ago). Brandler got his support directly from Stalin, after he asked for a "I support you, you support me," kind of backdoor, despicable deal. Spain as well had the Stalinists tag teaming with liberals against workers. Fucking patriotic BS.

Ned Kelly

2nd July 2012, 16:22

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 16:23

...

As for your challenge that there isn't a place with sufficient resources to establish a society possessing a majority of socialist characteristics, whatsbout south America?...

Ah, no you're changing the terms of the discussion. What is 'a majority of socialist characteristics'? We were discussing 'socialism'.

A corpse can have the majority of characteristics of a living person, except for one vital difference. Important? I'll let you decide.

South America is a vastly less industrialised region of the world than, say, Europe; as Russia was a vastly under-industrialised region compared to Europe 100 years ago. So, did the 'socialisation' of Russia work? South America would work just as well.

I don't know if this clears anything up, but I do support the continued agitation of revolution within other nations, but in the mean time I don't think that the States which have already won there independence cannot begin to enjoy the benefits that the revolution had promised.

But it can't. The revolution 'promises' (?) the liberation of humanity. If humanity is not liberated how can the revolution deliver?

In the 'liberated territories', the working class is likely to have to work harder to:
1-make up for the shortfall of international trade as capitalism embargoes the revolutionary territory;
2-increase arms production to defend the revolutionary territory from hostile capitalist attack;
3-repair the damage that the capitalists managed to inflict on the productive forces during their local defeat;
4-export arms and munitions to the still-revolting proletariat in the countries where the revolution is proceeding;
5-while all this is going on, try to increase the material standards of the population in the revolutionary territory.

Now, how well did the Soviet Republic manage these between say 1917 and 1921?

So, we spread Socialism by attacking countries and forcing it on everyone? Peaceful co-existence was the Khrushchevite line. Stalin was ready to support Socialist revolutions in other countries, and he did.

Way to go completely misinterpretting.

A world system cannot be both socialist and capitalist anymore than a person can be both alive and dead. You cannot 'spread socialism' you can only spread revolution. 'Peaceful Co-Existence' was the name of the policy under Krushchev that had, since 1925, been adopted by the Soviet Union; the end of the promotion of 'world revolution' signalled by the adoption of the thesis of socialism in one country, and the joining of the 'den of thieves' (the League of Nations) in 1934 (also the beginning of the 'popular front' policy).

'Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national'

The Communist Manifesto.

food for thought right there

Yes. And is this 'raising itself to be the leading class of the nation' socialism, or is it the dictatorship of the proletariat? No-one is denying that the working class must dispose of the bourgeoisie wherever it is; we're arguing that in itself that doesn't constitute 'socialism'. Nor does outlawing discrimination against minorities before anyone starts rabbitting on about 'socialist characteristics'.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 16:28

I have talked about establishing a society with a majority of socialist characteristics this entire discussion, read my first post. Now may I ask your alternative?

Should every country just wait for the next country to launch a revolution? The best way to defeat a position is through offering an alternative, so lets hear yours.

Hit The North

2nd July 2012, 16:52

Because as Marxists we do not deal with eternal metaphysical concepts, but stress the historical contexts in which society develops (that people make history but not under the circumstances they prefer, but those that are bequeathed to them) the question isn’t whether socialism can develop in one country in abstract conceptual terms, isolated from specific material conditions, but whether socialism can be made in one country given the context of a capitalist world market, populated by well armed bourgeois states. We cannot roll back history or suspend the determinations of the material world, therefore the question must always be answered on the basis of an analysis of actual prevailing conditions. So for Marx and Engels, the question is contextualised from the point of view of nineteenth century social developments where capitalism was in the process of constructing its world market and universalizing the social relations of production. For Trotsky the question was whether the Soviet Union could construct socialism in its current isolation surrounded by hostile capitalist powers.

The answer was "no" for both cases for reasons that can be easily researched.

But the essential point is that the question should always be answered on the basis of specific material analyses and not on the basis of a doctrinaire approach. So we might be able to come up with a hypothetical set of circumstances where socialism could be achieved in a single country, but in terms of the world as we have it, then it is not possible.

Hit The North

2nd July 2012, 16:56

'Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national'

The Communist Manifesto.

food for thought right there

A fuller exposition of the text reveals their actual position on this question:

The working men have no country.... Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 16:57

I have talked about establishing a society with a majority of socialist characteristics this entire discussion, read my first post. Now may I ask your alternative?...

You're right, you've missed the point of the discussion from the beginning.

My alternative is that you talk about 'socialism' like the rest of us, and drop this nonsense about 'majority socialist characteristics'.

...
Should every country just wait for the next country to launch a revolution? The best way to defeat a position is through offering an alternative, so lets hear yours.

Why should they do that? Surely the best way to offer the working class of a neighbouring territory an alternative and to encourage them in their own attempts is to launch your own revolution? Surely, the best way to support the revoilution that's already happening in a neighbouring teritory is to start your own?

What really can't work is to pretend that the local revolution can establish socialism or even worse that it has been established on a local basis. The working class launches revolutions when both material conditions, anc consciousness, which exist in a dialectical relationship, are both developed enough for it to happen; but this process doesn't just happen in one place. That's why, for example, the October revolution was part of a wave of consciousness that swept around the world and lasted 10 years, while the 'Argentinian revolution' of 2001 was a local crisis with a local result.

Revolutions are made by the working class, the working class is an international class witht he same interests everywhere - the overthrow of capitalism and the state and the revolutionary seizure of power and control over the economy, followed by the reorganisation of production for the benefit of humanity. That doesn't happen in Belgium, but not in Holland, or Venezuela and points south but not Mexico and Guatemala. To expect such a thing is bizarre.

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 17:04

And in the case that there isn't a revolution in a neighboring country? Or if the revolution(s) are defeated as was the case of 1920's Europe? My question is what is the option for the victorious socialist forces.

Furthermore you challenge that my 'society of majority of socialist characteristics' as off topic, but you do not refute it as impossible? Do you agree that such a society is possible prior to the establishment of international socialism?

Blake's Baby

2nd July 2012, 17:15

....The revolution 'promises' (?) the liberation of humanity. If humanity is not liberated how can the revolution deliver?

In the 'liberated territories', the working class is likely to have to work harder to:
1-make up for the shortfall of international trade as capitalism embargoes the revolutionary territory;
2-increase arms production to defend the revolutionary territory from hostile capitalist attack;
3-repair the damage that the capitalists managed to inflict on the productive forces during their local defeat;
4-export arms and munitions to the still-revolting proletariat in the countries where the revolution is proceeding;
5-while all this is going on, try to increase the material standards of the population in the revolutionary territory...

Nothing in the past hour has changed any of this.

So yes I refute the notion of a 'society with a majority of socialist characteristics' in the same way as I refute the notion that a 'corpse with a majority of living characteristics' is at all relevent to discussion about whether or not someone is alive or dead.

In case there are no aeroplanes, should we jump off cliffs?

If there is no revolution in a neghbouring country, then the revolution in your country was premature. Material conditions hadn't matured enough. You misjudged.

If the revolution was defeated in a neighbouring country, what should you do? I'd advise trying to do everything you can to support your class brothers in the neighbouring territory. What you should not do is close your borders, make peace with the encircling bourgeois powers, and declare that you're building socialism on your own.

Geiseric

2nd July 2012, 18:02

Besides "countries," are bourgeois consolidations of their own property. The bureaucracy wanted to be bourgeois but couldn't because of the soviets and the working class. Thus the restoration of capitalism in Russia started as the borders were closed..

Per Levy

2nd July 2012, 18:44

If there were Capitalist Martians, could we have Communism on Earth? Of course we could. That's because our means of production do not rely on Mars. If a nation (in the sense of people) could produce everything it needed, took care of all its affairs, and managed to defend itself, why couldn't it happen to be Communist? It needn't have a State, nor private property, nor classes, nor be hierarchical in any way. Communism needn't exist everywhere to exist at all.

the problem in your "example" is that earth is not dependent on mars, if it was then yes communism would be immpossible without a communist mars. now back to reality, the point is that the current system is a worldwide system, you have harldy any factories that manifacture a car all in one factory, some parts are made in china others made in southafrica and they're put together in a factory in the usa, what i want to say is every part of the world depends on other parts of the world in one way or another, every factory needs parts from other factories and recources that arnt nearby and so on and so on.

electrostal

2nd July 2012, 18:51

Thus the restoration of capitalism in Russia started as the borders were closed...
No, it definitely happened earlier, or much earlier, depending on who you ask.
Also there were pogroms in Central Asia/Caucasus in '89 and on...

Lev Bronsteinovich

2nd July 2012, 19:13

Obviously it is impossible to have a stateless society within one state, but I don't understand why achieving a society with nearly all other socialist characteristics is impossible in an abundant and secure territory. The means of production can be appropriated from the thwarted bourgiose of a nation, to that nations proletariat, even if the same is not happening in a neighboring country. Such is the case with other social changes that accompany socialism as well, like sexual and racial liberation.

Now of course, an isolated workers state could not survive if it were surrounded by hostile capitalist countries, or if it could not independently satisfy the material needs of its citizens, but if the state maintained the capacity to defend itself, and did possess sufficient resources, why would a near socialist society be impossible?

In addition I would appreciate if my argument is not refuted with the typical, "You need a world system, " unless you are prepared to define why the world system is necessary.

The problem with the theory of world revolution is that social, material, and cultural conditions differ from country to country, and it is impossible that the proletarians within each country will simultaneously be ready for a revolution.
I agree to a point, here. This imagined country would have all kinds of pressures placed upon it from without. Military and economic. It is also, I think, taking a very linear view to suppose that a successful revolution in a rich country, would exist for very long in isolation. If, say, the US or Germany had a socialist revolution, it would very likely spread to other, adjoining nations rather rapidly, don't you think. Many of the reasons this did not happen after the Russian Revolution would not apply. With all of its obvious limitations, the RR almost did spark a revolution in Germany.

So, you can have capitalism in one country, BFD. At least you could with the beginnings of mercantile capitalism. You can't have a classless stateless society in one country. You will need the state (armed bodies of men. . . ) to protect against outside aggression. And you will probably need to reach a very high level of material wealth that is unlikely to develop within the confines of one country to do away with generalized wand and arrive at a classless society.

A Marxist Historian

2nd July 2012, 20:08

I agree to a point, here. This imagined country would have all kinds of pressures placed upon it from without. Military and economic. It is also, I think, taking a very linear view to suppose that a successful revolution in a rich country, would exist for very long in isolation. If, say, the US or Germany had a socialist revolution, it would very likely spread to other, adjoining nations rather rapidly, don't you think. Many of the reasons this did not happen after the Russian Revolution would not apply. With all of its obvious limitations, the RR almost did spark a revolution in Germany.

So, you can have capitalism in one country, BFD. At least you could with the beginnings of mercantile capitalism. You can't have a classless stateless society in one country. You will need the state (armed bodies of men. . . ) to protect against outside aggression. And you will probably need to reach a very high level of material wealth that is unlikely to develop within the confines of one country to do away with generalized wand and arrive at a classless society.

Actually, you can't even have mercantile capitalism in one country. Colonialism was the essence of mercantilism. It's exactly the colonial exploitation of the New World that made possible the flowering of mercantile and then industrial capitalism.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

2nd July 2012, 20:12

Which is assuming that the Hungarian revolt would have still taken place had Stalin been alive. Seriously, nice idealism.

Why not? Because the Hungarian workers would have been too scared to revolt? That grossly overestimates the effectiveness of Stalinist brutality.

They would if anything have been more motivated to revolt, as the policy of extracting resources from Eastern Europe for the benefit of Soviet reconstruction was closely associated with Stalin, and had already been considerably reformed by 1956, and dropped altogether in the aftermath of '56, after which it wasn't Eastern Europe subsidizing the USSR but the other way around.

-M.H.-

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 20:56

Nothing in the past hour has changed any of this.

So yes I refute the notion of a 'society with a majority of socialist characteristics' in the same way as I refute the notion that a 'corpse with a majority of living characteristics' is at all relevent to discussion about whether or not someone is alive or dead.

In case there are no aeroplanes, should we jump off cliffs?

If there is no revolution in a neghbouring country, then the revolution in your country was premature. Material conditions hadn't matured enough. You misjudged.

If the revolution was defeated in a neighbouring country, what should you do? I'd advise trying to do everything you can to support your class brothers in the neighbouring territory. What you should not do is close your borders, make peace with the encircling bourgeois powers, and declare that you're building socialism on your own.

Oh so you are saying that if its not full socialism nothing about it can be socialist. What? That's ridiculous. I acknowledge that the interdependence of the economy and capitalist aggression would make it difficult ti establish said society, but in this argument your defense is idealist.

Oh and enough with the metaphors. The elements of the universe are not analagous, so what is true of a human body has no bearing on the characteristics of a society.

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 21:29

Oh so you are saying that if its not full socialism nothing about it can be socialist. What? That's ridiculous. I acknowledge that the interdependence of the economy and capitalist aggression would make it difficult ti establish said society, but in this argument your defense is idealist.
No, it's Marxism. Capitalism and socialism are not for us extra-historical principals, which may exist in greater or less quantities, or which a given society may be in greater or lesser quantities (that would be an idealist analysis), they are ways of describing the fundamental terms of social reproduction. Capitalism is the mediation of the relations of production by commodity exchange, socialism is the relations of production direct and unmediated. A body of relations, if understood not as a series of individual relationships but as a totality, a social whole, must fundamentally be one or the other.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

2nd July 2012, 21:39

I mean, the obvious answer is that capitalism in England and subsequently in continental Europe unleashed greater productive capacity and rapid technological change as the means of production were continuously revolutionized.

I just don't understand why "socialism in one country is impossible" is taken to be axiomatic. Socialism in one country is definitely a rough prospect. Socialism in two, four, or seven countries would be better. Socialism in rich and powerful countries would be even greater.

But it seems to me that it has to start somewhere. Spreading it will be a long and difficult struggle. I can't imagine a mechanism whereby socialism sweeps the entire industrialized world at once (I'm assuming opposition to "socialism in one country" really means "socialism in all the rich countries" is what is needed).

The transition to communism, Socialism, will inevitably be in competition with Capitalism and will need to act accordingly until Capitalism becomes obsolete. So that means that "Socialism" will really have to pertain market, private property, capital and free trade qualities until markets, the profitmotive and hence capital, become obsolete. The difference between the Socialist economy and the Capitalist economies will have to be to immediately begin the ending of class relations of production, educate workers on management of their production towards complete direct democratic workers control as the productive forces advance. The goal of the socialist state contrary to the orthodox capitalist state though, has to be to invest as much possible wealth into the advance of the productive forces.

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 21:41

So it's basically the same as capitalism, you just scribble out "capital" and write in "the productive forces"?

Positivist

2nd July 2012, 22:01

No, it's Marxism. Capitalism and socialism are not for us extra-historical principals, which may exist in greater or less quantities, or which a given society may be in greater or lesser quantities (that would be an idealist analysis), they are ways of describing the fundamental terms of social reproduction. Capitalism is the mediation of the relations of production by commodity exchange, socialism is the relations of production direct and unmediated. A body of relations, if understood not as a series of individual relationships but as a totality, a social whole, must fundamentally be one or the other.

What I said was that if full socialism hasn't developed, is it impossible to have a society which possessed a majority of socialist characteristics. I can understand from what you say that economic systems are global, and therefore that socialism in one country is oxymoronic. But, what I have been arguing against is that a state cannot possess the characteristics of workers democracy, racial and sexual liberation, free access to living materials prior to the establishment of socialism. Do you deny that this is possible granted economic independence and capable defense?!

At this point I believe that the difference in my view from the opposing parties has been that I did not believe that an economic system was necessarily global, and that what I have been calling a society of a majority of socialist characteristics is what most would call a workers state.

Zav

2nd July 2012, 22:10

the problem in your "example" is that earth is not dependent on mars, if it was then yes communism would be immpossible without a communist mars. now back to reality, the point is that the current system is a worldwide system, you have harldy any factories that manifacture a car all in one factory, some parts are made in china others made in southafrica and they're put together in a factory in the usa, what i want to say is every part of the world depends on other parts of the world in one way or another, every factory needs parts from other factories and recources that arnt nearby and so on and so on.
We're talking about the possible, not the present conditions. Right now, yes, a truly Communist society with all present comforts would be difficult if not impossible to achieve.

Psy

2nd July 2012, 22:17

No, it was indeed worth making. It showed that Communism is indeed not impossible in one area. The fact that the conditions for this do not presently exist is totally irrelevant.
Since the conditions do not exist, it is an impossible concept? Why couldn't a real country eliminate said economic dependencies?
The problem is friction would exist between any workers state and bourgeoisie states thus as long as bourgeoisie states exist a workers state would have to have a massive standing army to deter capitalists from assimilation the workers state. Such a massive standing army would drain productivity of the workers state.

For example lets say Australia became a workers state, Australia would need to rapidly build up is military and that won't defend Australia from organizations like the CIA. Over time Australia simply would fall into a degenerated workers state as people lose faith in the revolution as their living standards are held back by the need for a massive military build up.

Now if on the other hand Australia instead of building socialism just in Australia focused on exporting revolution then it wouldn't need such a massive military as the workers state can rely on the spreading revolution being a weapon itself and that any bourgeoisie attacker would have to deal with the revolution rebelling against them.

Tim Finnegan

2nd July 2012, 22:36

What I said was that if full socialism hasn't developed, is it impossible to have a society which possessed a majority of socialist characteristics. I can understand from what you say that economic systems are global, and therefore that socialism in one country is oxymoronic. But, what I have been arguing against is that a state cannot possess the characteristics of workers democracy, racial and sexual liberation, free access to living materials prior to the establishment of socialism. Do you deny that this is possible granted economic independence and capable defense?!

At this point I believe that the difference in my view from the opposing parties has been that I did not believe that an economic system was necessarily global, and that what I have been calling a society of a majority of socialist characteristics is what most would call a workers state.
What's a "socialist characteristic", exactly? You seem to be implying that socialism is just a matter of public policy, something that can be broken down into a list of bullet points and any given regime scored against them. As I said, it's not, it's a matter of the fundamental terms of social relations, something which can't be "a bit" or "mostly" socialist, they are simply socialist, or they are not.

At any rate, even an authentic "workers' state" is no indication of socialism. By definition, it cannot be, because the persistence of a working class means the persistence of class as such, thus class society, thus capitalism. A socialist society is a society without social class, thus without class-rule, thus without a state.

Lev Bronsteinovich

2nd July 2012, 23:03

Actually, you can't even have mercantile capitalism in one country. Colonialism was the essence of mercantilism. It's exactly the colonial exploitation of the New World that made possible the flowering of mercantile and then industrial capitalism.

-M.H.-
I don't know. It effected other parts of the world that were being exploited, yes. It seems that one could say that capitalism is all about the consolidation of nation states, quite separate politically, but not economically.

electrostal

2nd July 2012, 23:07

As I said, it's not, it's a matter of the fundamental terms of social relations, something which can't be "a bit" or "mostly" socialist, they are simply socialist, or they are not.Yes, but don't you think that there is some "practical" merit to this, in the overall context of capitalism as a global system? For example Cuba perhaps isn't a socialist country, its Constitution says that (the party) is only striving towards socialism, but is it really practical to call Cuba a capitalist country?
The USSR, IIRC, "officialy" became socialist in 1936. What was it in 1935?

At any rate, even an authentic "workers' state" is no indication of socialism. By definition, it cannot be, because the persistence of a working class means the persistence of class as such, thus class society, thus capitalism. A socialist society is a society without social class, thus without class-rule, thus without a state. That's where the the difference between the working class and the proletariat ("the class of hired workers in capitalism") comes to play, I think.

Positivist

3rd July 2012, 00:11

What's a "socialist characteristic", exactly? You seem to be implying that socialism is just a matter of public policy, something that can be broken down into a list of bullet points and any given regime scored against them. As I said, it's not, it's a matter of the fundamental terms of social relations, something which can't be "a bit" or "mostly" socialist, they are simply socialist, or they are not.

At any rate, even an authentic "workers' state" is no indication of socialism. By definition, it cannot be, because the persistence of a working class means the persistence of class as such, thus class society, thus capitalism. A socialist society is a society without social class, thus without class-rule, thus without a state.

A characteristic of a socialist society, is a social relation that would exist in a socialist society. What don't you understand about that? What else could it possibly mean? For example the relation of workers to the means of production can be that of the managers of them and recipients of the surplus produced by them, rather than the capitalists retaining their management and reception. That is a social relation that would exist in a socialist society, which could exist outside of a world socialist system.

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2012, 01:44

Question for Trotskyists.

Well, I am not a Trotskyist, but I will have a go here anyway.

If socialism in one country is an impossibility then why wasn't the same true of capitalism?

I don't think capitalism is possible in one country anymore. It is a world system, and no country can adequately function as a capitalist economy if it gets isolated from the rest of the world.

A great deal of debate is out there about when exactly to pinpoint the beginnings of "capitalism" but clearly it didn't come like an avalanche all around the world at once.

Sure. Feudalism was not a world system like capitalism is, and consequently could be opposed in less-than-international ways. Indeed, capitalism starts by asserting itself nationally, against the many sub-national barriers against commerce that prevented actual national unification under feudalism.

Bourgeois revolutions and changes happened in waves, with many fits and starts and counterrevolutions. Elements of the "old regime" persisted even after the rise of capitalism. Isn't the process of building socialism/communism more likely to resemble the same sort of trajectory?

Because capitalism is still a system of exploitation, it can take actual advantage of pre-capitalist modes of exploitation (for instance, renewed servitude in Eastern Europe, slavery in the Americas). How would socialism be able to co-exist with continuing exploitation, be it capitalist or pre-capitalist?

Is socialism/communism inherently weaker than capitalism and therefore needs to happen in the more industrialized countries in order to be successful?

Any mode of production is inherently weaker than its predecessor until it actually manages to sway things in a different direction. Capitalism was weaker than feudalism until it broke the feudal State and replaced it by a bourgeois State. It was, of course, blessed by the fact that a few political revolutions destroyed the feudal State in a few places (Switzerland, England) before the capitalist mode of production effectively developed. But it isn't likely that anything comparable could happen to capitalist States without an actual socialist, proletarian, revolution.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2012, 01:56

Why couldn't a real country eliminate said economic dependencies?

Because this would imply a setback to its productive forces that would likely make socialism impossible. That would indeed likely make capitalism impossible too; such country would either rebuild its connections to the world system, or descend into a state of economic disorder that would make the accumulation of capital impossible (at which point what would happen is that other countries would reestablish the connections of the failed State to the world system. At point gun most probably.)

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

3rd July 2012, 02:13

whether socialism can be made in one country given the context of a capitalist world market, populated by well armed bourgeois states.

Or, conversely, how would a few bourgeois States be able to keep their economies capitalist without a world market in the case a significant part of the world overthrew the bourgeoisie and abolished capitalism.

Suppose all countries have a revolution and become socialist, except the United States. How is it going to import commodities, how is it going to sell its excedents, where is it going to export capital? How much time until a revolution topples capitalism there too?

Luís Henrique

Zealot

3rd July 2012, 05:48

Way to go completely misinterpretting.

A world system cannot be both socialist and capitalist anymore than a person can be both alive and dead. You cannot 'spread socialism' you can only spread revolution. 'Peaceful Co-Existence' was the name of the policy under Krushchev that had, since 1925, been adopted by the Soviet Union; the end of the promotion of 'world revolution' signalled by the adoption of the thesis of socialism in one country, and the joining of the 'den of thieves' (the League of Nations) in 1934 (also the beginning of the 'popular front' policy.

Way to go completely misinterpreting.

shinjuku dori is implying, it seems to me, that the capitalist countries should be attacked for the spreading of "revolution" (which wouldn't make it a revolution because a revolution is initiated by the masses). World revolution was never abandoned. Khrushchev's 'Peaceful co-existence' was something else altogether different from the Leninist stance. You can read this polemic (http://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/polemic/peaceful.htm) in response to the CPSU's line of Peaceful Co-existence, explaining the differences between the Leninist and Khrushchevite Peaceful Co-existence, written by the Chinese Communist Party.

Why not? Because the Hungarian workers would have been too scared to revolt? That grossly overestimates the effectiveness of Stalinist brutality.

Another strawman.

shinjuku dori

3rd July 2012, 06:05

Stalin lovers advocate Somalia with red flags and posters of their dear leader.

Zealot

3rd July 2012, 06:13

Stalin lovers advocate Somalia with red flags and posters of their dear leader.

Because the Soviet Union was essentially Somalia with red flags, right? Your anti-Socialist one-liners are becoming redundant.

shinjuku dori

3rd July 2012, 06:22

Soviet is gone. Long time. Stalin model in today's circumstance is North Korea. New attempt would be Somalia.

Zealot

3rd July 2012, 07:41

Soviet is gone. Long time. Stalin model in today's circumstance is North Korea. New attempt would be Somalia.

Criticise Stalin and the Soviet Union all you want but at least use some type of analysis and facts in your criticism. For a self-proclaimed Marxist, I am appalled with the bourgeois bosh coming out of your posts. But of course, your using anti-Stalinism to conceal your anti-Marxist attitude.

shinjuku dori

3rd July 2012, 08:59

I am anarchist. Not marxist. Sorry for your religious observance.

Zealot

3rd July 2012, 10:00

I am anarchist. Not marxist. Sorry for your religious observance.

Oh, it all makes sense now.

Tim Finnegan

3rd July 2012, 11:42

A characteristic of a socialist society, is a social relation that would exist in a socialist society. What don't you understand about that? What else could it possibly mean? For example the relation of workers to the means of production can be that of the managers of them and recipients of the surplus produced by them, rather than the capitalists retaining their management and reception. That is a social relation that would exist in a socialist society, which could exist outside of a world socialist system.
That's not a social relation, that's just a particular distribution of property. Social relations are by definition relations between people. You can't associate with a machine.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd July 2012, 12:18

I am anarchist. Not marxist. Sorry for your religious observance.

It all makes sense now.

Tim Finnegan

3rd July 2012, 12:40

Did that really need said twice?

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd July 2012, 12:49

Oh haha, I just saw that RedGodfather said that a few posts above mine.
My bad,all credit goes to RedGodfather.

:blushing:

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd July 2012, 12:53

Great minds think alike. :rolleyes:

Positivist

3rd July 2012, 20:07

That's not a social relation, that's just a particular distribution of property. Social relations are by definition relations between people. You can't associate with a machine.

I still don't understand your confusion over a socialist characteristic. It is, as implied by its name, a characteristic of the social relation which is refered to as socialism. Perhaps this social relation cannot semantically exist in a single territory because it doesn't involve all of humanity as its definition dictates it must, but my point is that given economic independence and substantial defensive capability, a society possessing the majority of characteristics associated with socialism can be established.

As for your argument that the social relation of socialism is not merely a bulleted list of characteristics, this is not exactly true. Of course socialism is much more than a bullet list of characteristics, but it very much does have characteristics. If it didn't have characteristics, it wouldn't exist. The characteristics of a system are the only way through which a society may be defined and comprehended, or through which anything at all may be defined or comprehended for that matter.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

3rd July 2012, 20:27

Capitalism, obviously, wasn't always a world system. Holland and England were the first countries where capitalism really started "picking up steam".

And this is where empire was vital. As Jeffrey Sachs put it, "three centuries of slave trade followed by a century of brutal colonial rule".

Capitalism is not possible as a national system. Where it did exist in single nations - England, for example - it was because Britain as an island was:

a) geographically well placed to avoid invasion, especially with its incredibly good navy, but most importantly
b) British empire and the policy of mercantilism followed by protectionism; in other words, British military and political/economic might meant that Capitalism could sustain itself initially in Britain alone.

Of course, Britain's industrial revolution (i.e. the birth of capitalism) was not strictly national. As we know, the industrial revolution revealed itself in a massive increase in industrial net output, but we also know that the urban proletariat was incredibly poor. A lot of the industrial output produced in Britain in the earlier stages of Capitalism went to foreign markets, so even though Britain alone industrialised first, its a misnomer to mistake this for Capitalism not being at least semi-global at this point. Without foreign markets, it would not have made sense for Britain to industrialise.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 20:50

Capitalism is no longer a revolutionary force; nothing capitalism accomplishes anymore is capable of revolutionizing society.
Sure it is, there are still many utterly underdeveloped semi-feudal countries around...

A Marxist Historian

3rd July 2012, 21:00

And this is where empire was vital. As Jeffrey Sachs put it, "three centuries of slave trade followed by a century of brutal colonial rule".

Capitalism is not possible as a national system. Where it did exist in single nations - England, for example - it was because Britain as an island was:

a) geographically well placed to avoid invasion, especially with its incredibly good navy, but most importantly
b) British empire and the policy of mercantilism followed by protectionism; in other words, British military and political/economic might meant that Capitalism could sustain itself initially in Britain alone.

Of course, Britain's industrial revolution (i.e. the birth of capitalism) was not strictly national. As we know, the industrial revolution revealed itself in a massive increase in industrial net output, but we also know that the urban proletariat was incredibly poor. A lot of the industrial output produced in Britain in the earlier stages of Capitalism went to foreign markets, so even though Britain alone industrialised first, its a misnomer to mistake this for Capitalism not being at least semi-global at this point. Without foreign markets, it would not have made sense for Britain to industrialise.

And then there is Eric Williams' famous and much argued thesis that it was all those slave sugar plantations in Barbados and Jamaica and so forth that paid for the Industrial Revolution.

-M.H.-

Tim Finnegan

3rd July 2012, 21:02

I still don't understand your confusion over a socialist characteristic. It is, as implied by its name, a characteristic of the social relation which is refered to as socialism. Perhaps this social relation cannot semantically exist in a single territory because it doesn't involve all of humanity as its definition dictates it must, but my point is that given economic independence and substantial defensive capability, a society possessing the majority of characteristics associated with socialism can be established.

As for your argument that the social relation of socialism is not merely a bulleted list of characteristics, this is not exactly true. Of course socialism is much more than a bullet list of characteristics, but it very much does have characteristics. If it didn't have characteristics, it wouldn't exist. The characteristics of a system are the only way through which a society may be defined and comprehended, or through which anything at all may be defined or comprehended for that matter.
I'll be frank, there is no theoretical content here. It's jargon held together with spit and hope.

Look, a mode of production is a mode of social reproduction. It is a question of how people engage in the material processes by which they reproduce themselves as individual beings and as social beings. That is not something that can be broken down to a list of static "characteristics" which may be assembled like Lego blocks in whatever order is demanded, it is by necessity a totality, a wholeness, and is experienced as such. Bullet-pointing exercises are a purely conceptual exercise, a way of expressing the irreducible complexity of concrete society in a more easily-digestible form (and not even a particularly sophisticated one, let alone the "only" one!), so to pose these as the reality itself, a set of invariant and transhistorical principles which may happen to manifest in concrete, is to abandon a materialist conception of society and of history quite entirely.

Sure it is, there are still many utterly underdeveloped semi-feudal countries around...
:laugh:

Vladimir Innit Lenin

3rd July 2012, 21:04

And then there is Eric Williams' famous and much argued thesis that it was all those slave sugar plantations in Barbados and Jamaica and so forth that paid for the Industrial Revolution.

-M.H.-

I'm not sure how true this is. Certainly many bourgeois academics do underplay the importance of empire and exploitation, but I would also argue that it was the peasants who actually suffered hugely, losing their land and becoming effectively proletarianised, whose losses when the enclosure movement began to take speed, actually bore the initial cost of industrialisation.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 21:04

Yes, that's how Mao characterized the pre-'49 China and how certain communist parties described many other countries. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Somalia and other African countries don't even have centralized power, instead various warlords rule in their own domains...

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 21:14

Great minds think alike. :rolleyes:

Fools seldom differ, as we say here.

Yes, that's how Mao characterized the pre-'49 China and how certain communist parties described many other countries. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Somalia and other African countries don't even have centralized power, instead various warlords rule in their own domains...

Sorry to burst your theoretical bubble, but many of us go along with Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and the 3rd International who believed that the First World war was the definitive proof that capitalism had already entered a period when it was no longer the revolutionary force in society. Capitalism ceased to be a force for progress in the late 19th century - you're 120 years late. If on the other hand you're right, Lenin and Trotsky were massive fools and the Russian revolution was a stupid and tragic cock-up, as the world wasn't ready for socialist revolution, because the Mensheviks were right and capitalism needeed to revolutionise certain countries first.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 21:36

Sorry to burst your theoretical bubble, but many of us go along with Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and the 3rd International who believed that the First World war was the definitive proof that capitalism had already entered a period when it was no longer the revolutionary force in society.
Imperialism is the most barefaced exploitation and the most inhuman oppression of hundreds of millions of people inhabiting vast colonies and dependent countries. The purpose of this exploitation and of this oppression is to squeeze out super-profits. But in exploiting these countries imperialism is compelled to build there railways, factories and mills, industrial and commercial centres. The appearance of a class of proletarians, the emergence of a native intelligentsia, the awakening of national consciousness, the growth of the liberation movement -- such are the inevitable results of this "policy." The growth of the revolutionary movement in all colonies and dependent countries without exception clearly testifies to this fact. This circumstance is of importance for the proletariat inasmuch as it saps radically the position of
capitalism by converting the colonies and dependent countries from reserves of imperialism into reserves of the proletarian revolution.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch01.htm

Capitalism ceased to be a force for progress in the late 19th century - you're 120 years late. If on the other hand you're right, Lenin and Trotsky were massive fools and the Russian revolution was a stupid and tragic cock-up, as the world wasn't ready for socialist revolution, because the Mensheviks were right and capitalism needeed to revolutionise certain countries first.
Formerly the proletarian revolution was regarded exclusively as the result of the internal development of a given country. Now, this point of view is no longer adequate. Now the proletarian revolution must be regarded primarily as the result of the development of the contradictions within the world system of imperialism, as the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front in one country or another.
Where will the revolution begin? Where, in what country, can the front of capital be pierced first?
Where industry is more developed, where the proletarian constitutes the majority, where the proletariat constitutes the majority, where the there is more culture, where there is more democracy-that was the reply usually given formerly.
No, objects the Leninist theory of revolution, not necessarily where industry is more developed, and so forth. The front of capital will be pierced where the chain of imperialism is weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link; and it may turn out that the country which has started the revolution, which has made a breach in the front of capital, is less developed in a capitalist sense than other, more developed, countries, which have, however, remained within the framework of capitalism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch03.htm

Positivist

3rd July 2012, 22:27

I'll be frank, there is no theoretical content here. It's jargon held together with spit and hope.

Look, a mode of production is a mode of social reproduction. It is a question of how people engage in the material processes by which they reproduce themselves as individual beings and as social beings. That is not something that can be broken down to a list of static "characteristics" which may be assembled like Lego blocks in whatever order is demanded, it is by necessity a totality, a wholeness, and is experienced as such. Bullet-pointing exercises are a purely conceptual exercise, a way of expressing the irreducible complexity of concrete society in a more easily-digestible form (and not even a particularly sophisticated one, let alone the "only" one!), so to pose these as the reality itself, a set of invariant and transhistorical principles which may happen to manifest in concrete, is to abandon a materialist conception of society and of history quite entirely.

:laugh:

So you deny that each mode of production possesses characteristics? To charge me with theoretical deformity and then to make such a ludicrous statement is absurd. In your post, all you achieve is the defining of a mode of production. The definition you provide is equally suited for capitalism. Though these systems are immensley different, are they not? Then the question is what distinguishes the one mode from the other. It is there characteristics.

You reject this, but then offer no substitute to differentiate each mode from one another. I can only assume, seeing that you have left it out of your post, that you interpret the systemic differences between each mode as responsible for their differentiation. This I agree with, but incompletely. For if the only factor that differs from mode to mode is its organization than why is one preferable to the other? It is because they have different
characteristics. Or since you are having difficulty wrapping your head around that word, the differences in systemic operation result in different trends being expressed in society. These trends are it's characteristics.

For example, the capitalists ownership of capital, and dictation of how his/her capital is to be used, means that the labourer responsible for working with/on the capital is unable to apply their creativity to the productive process, and is deprived of the fruits of production. These examples of deprivement and alienation are characteristics of capitalism. In socialism, the workers own the capital and decide how it is used, giving the socialist mode of production the characteristics of liberating and just.

But back to my actual argument, a society where the systemic operations of socialism is employed in order to attain a society possessing the characteristics of socialism is possible, even if it doesn't fit the textbook definition of socialism that demands the inclusion of the entire human population.

I was not, as you suggested, alluding to the possibility of the establishment of a society with socialist characteristics removed from the total operation of the socialist system. I granted that the definition of socialism excludes the possibility of its existence in one region, but then argued that essentially the same system can be applied to a secure and abundant area and the result will be a society with a majority of socialist characteristics. (The cheif characteristic that would be impossible, being statelessness.)

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 22:32

... some stuff...

Wow, you can use a quote function. Wanna put some content into that post, Sparky?

... some social democracy ...

No, I'm afraid a society cannot have 'socialist characteristics' without being socialism, as the 'characteristics' of socialism are that it is a classless communal society. If it isn't a classless communal society, then it doesn't have 'the characteristics of socialism'.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 22:50

No, I'm afraid a society cannot have 'socialist characteristics' without being socialism, as the 'characteristics' of socialism are that it is a classless communal society. If it isn't a classless communal society, then it doesn't have 'the characteristics of socialism'.
Transitionary periods, birthmarks and so on. And a better word might be "socialistic".

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 22:58

Transitionary periods, birthmarks and so on...

Oh, absolutely. But the transition to socialism doesn't begin until the revolution is successfully completed. The period of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a class society (therefore not socialism) initially based on the pre-existing nations (therefore not socialism) and with property (therefore not socialism) and a state (therefore not socialism).

It can evolve into socialism when all other states have been abolished, all exploiting classes suppressed, all property collectivised; only then can socialism begin, not before.

... And a better word might be "socialistic".

You have to take that up with Positivist, he's the one pedalling new definitions of social democracy

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 23:06

But the transition to socialism doesn't begin until the revolution is successfully completed.I think, though I might be wrong of course, that Lenin disagreed:

Both the anarchists and the petty-bourgeois democrats (i.e., the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are the Russian counterparts of that international social type) have talked and are still talking an incredible lot of nonsense about the relation between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist (that is, proletarian) revolution. The last four years have proved to the hilt that our interpretation of Marxism on this point, and our estimate of the experience of former revolutions were correct. We have consummated the bourgeois-democratic revolution as nobody had done before. We are advancing towards the socialist revolution consciously, firmly and unswervingly, knowing that it is not separated from the bourgeois-democratic revolution by a Chinese Wall, and knowing too that (in the last analysis) struggle alone will determine how far we shall advance, what part of this immense and lofty task we shall accomplish, and to what extent we shall succeed in consolidating our victories. Time will show. But we see even now that a tremendous amount—tremendous for this ruined, exhausted and backward country—has already been done towards the socialist transformation of society.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/14.htm

It can evolve into socialism when all other states have been abolished, all exploiting classes suppressed, all property collectivised; only then can socialism begin, not before.This sounds overly dogmatic to me. Why would socialism be impossible if, say, one whole continent, and only one, remained under bourgeois rule?

Lev Bronsteinovich

3rd July 2012, 23:23

I think, though I might be wrong of course, that Lenin disagreed:

Both the anarchists and the petty-bourgeois democrats (i.e., the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who are the Russian counterparts of that international social type) have talked and are still talking an incredible lot of nonsense about the relation between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist (that is, proletarian) revolution. The last four years have proved to the hilt that our interpretation of Marxism on this point, and our estimate of the experience of former revolutions were correct. We have consummated the bourgeois-democratic revolution as nobody had done before. We are advancing towards the socialist revolution consciously, firmly and unswervingly, knowing that it is not separated from the bourgeois-democratic revolution by a Chinese Wall, and knowing too that (in the last analysis) struggle alone will determine how far we shall advance, what part of this immense and lofty task we shall accomplish, and to what extent we shall succeed in consolidating our victories. Time will show. But we see even now that a tremendous amount—tremendous for this ruined, exhausted and backward country—has already been done towards the socialist transformation of society.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/14.htm

This sounds overly dogmatic to me. Why would socialism be impossible if, say, one whole continent, and only one, remained under bourgeois rule?
If all of the world except one continent had proletarian revolutions, that last continent would be highly unlikely not to follow. So if you take a schematic and somewhat disembodied perspective, you have a point. But really, if this could happen, it would a most ephemeral phenomenon.

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 23:28

Because a continent remains under bourgeois rule.

If a cat eats dog food, is it a dog? No.

If a state, or collection of states, calls itself socialist, is it socialist? No.

Socialism is a classless communal society. If there are classes, if there are states, if there is property, then it is not socialism, because 'a thing' cannot be both 'itself' and 'not itself'. That's not 'dogmatism', that's believing in meaning.

If 'anything' is equal to 'anything else' then sure, socialism means one person in one bedroom with a red flag and a Stalin poster is a people's republic to himself. Or he might be a unicorn, who knows?

But if there is meaning, reality, material analysis and all the rest of it, then inherent in socialism is the surpassing of capitalism, not its avoidance.

My reading is that the Lenin quote doesn't say what you think it says. '... advancing towards the socialist revolution...' is not having the socialist revolution, not indeed having socialism; '...struggle alone will determine how far we will advance...' is not 'look how far we have advanced' and nor is it 'hey we've arrived'; '...what part of this lofty task we shall accomplish' is neither '...what part of this lofty task we have accomplished' and nor is it 'we've accomplished everything'; '...we see even now that a tremendous amount... has already been done towards the socialist transformation of society' is neither '...everything... has already been done towards the socialist transformation of society' nor is it 'a tremendous amount... has already been done during the socialist transformation of society'.

And in this case, a better term for 'socialist transformation' might indeed be 'socialstic transformation'.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 23:31

Socialism is a classless communal society. If there are classes, if there are states, if there is property, then it is not socialism, because 'a thing' cannot be both 'itself' and 'not itself'. That's not 'dogmatism', that's believing in meaning.Fine. Did Lenin say that socialism cannot be but stateless?

And in this case, a better term for 'socialist transformation' might indeed be 'socialstic transformation'. Perhaps, i think that socialist transformation started only around 1928 or so. It's an interesting subject. In that context what Lenin said, I think, makes perfect sense.
In any case I think that it more-less clearly disproves your the transition to socialism doesn't begin until the revolution is successfully completed.

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 23:32

Fine. Did Lenin say that socialism cannot be but stateless?

Perhaps, i think that socialist transformation started only around 1928 or so. It's an interesting subject. In that context what Lenin said, I think, makes perfect sense.
In any case I think that it more-less clearly disproves your the transition to socialism doesn't begin until the revolution is successfully completed.

But we call that 'capitalism'.

So if your 'socialism' is the same as our 'capitalism' then I'd agree. The USSR in 1928 was capitalist.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 23:34

Perhaps it can be called that.
It was moving towards something else though, and it was a move towards socialism, under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 23:40

No, it really wasn't.

There was massive statisation of the economy which means that the state, instead of 'withering away', grew progressively stronger. It was a leader in state capitalism; unlike most of the western economies which switched from statisation during WWI to laissez-faire 'business as usual' after the war, the USSR just carried on with its wartime economy. It was a world-leader in the development of 20th century capitalism.

electrostal

3rd July 2012, 23:46

There was massive statisation of the economy which means that the state, instead of 'withering away', grew progressively stronger.Stalin wrote an interesting passage on this, actually. Don't know if you've heard of it before but I'd appreaciate your comments:

We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state-power—such is the Marxist formula. Is this 'contradictory' ? Yes, it is 'contradictory'. But this contradiction is bound up with life, and it fully reflects Marx's dialectics.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/aug/27.htm

Blake's Baby

3rd July 2012, 23:57

It's not really contradictory.

It's just based on the idea that 'the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party' = 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'. As long as one holds to that, one has to jump through all sorts of hoops. As soon as you realise that it isn't the case, that in fact the counter-revolution was ushered in in Russia by the Bolsheviks and the state apparatus, things become much easier to explain, and you start to become useful to the working class again.

Marxism is powerful because it's a way of explaining the world. What Stalinism does is attempt to mystify the world. It's an ideology designed to justify the existence of the Soviet state.

Honestly, comrade, scales, eyes, that sort of thing. Really.

electrostal

4th July 2012, 00:01

So what do you think should have happened with Soviet Russia in the sense of "getting on the right track" to real socialism?

Blake's Baby

4th July 2012, 00:17

Positivist

4th July 2012, 00:24

Wow, you can use a quote function. Wanna put some content into that post, Sparky?

No, I'm afraid a society cannot have 'socialist characteristics' without being socialism, as the 'characteristics' of socialism are that it is a classless communal society. If it isn't a classless communal society, then it doesn't have 'the characteristics of socialism'.

Where do I say some social democracy? And my argument is that you can have a classless communal society without statelessness.

Blake's Baby

4th July 2012, 00:32

Where do I say some social democracy? ...

Big massive post of it earlier on where you say 'hmmm, capitalism can be made nicer, that's almost like socialism isn't it?'

...
And my argument is that you can have a classless communal society without statelessness.

What is a state?

Engels' answer: men, armed in defence of property relations.

Marx's answer: an organ for one class to suppress another.

So, how can you have a state, which is an organ of class oppression, in defence of property relations, if there are no classes and no property?

If there is no property (ie, society is communal) then there can be no classes (so society is classless) so there can be no state (so society is stateless). The state relies on classes, and classes rely on property.

So if there is a state, there must necessarily be classes (society is not classless) and if there are classes there must necessarily be property (society is not communal).

That's why.

LuÃs Henrique

4th July 2012, 00:34

Why would socialism be impossible if, say, one whole continent, and only one, remained under bourgeois rule?

In principle, it wouldn't (though it would be different, of course, whether such one continent was Australia or Eurasia). But in that case, what would become impossible would be capitalism, which would collapse in a quite short lapse of time, immediately opening up the opportunity for socialist revolution.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

4th July 2012, 00:46

Because a continent remains under bourgeois rule.

If a cat eats dog food, is it a dog? No.

If a state, or collection of states, calls itself socialist, is it socialist? No.

Socialism is a classless communal society. If there are classes, if there are states, if there is property, then it is not socialism, because 'a thing' cannot be both 'itself' and 'not itself'. That's not 'dogmatism', that's believing in meaning.

Evidently, one could posit the idea that there would be two different societies, one classless and the other class-based. Which is the case, of course, of primitive socialist societies that still exist or existed until quite recently, in isolation, such as in hinterland Australia or the Amazon forest: they are, or were, classless societies in a world dominated by a class, the bourgeoisie.

The point is that primitive socialism can exist within territories and populations much smaller than a country, because it is based upon very backward productive forces. Capitalism required at least a country in its initial stages, and requires a world (though, evidently, a world divided into different countries) as of today. Socialism requires the destruction of capitalism; maybe it was possible in one country in 1780, when - and if - capitalism was still not a world system. But today it requires a world, and a world in which boundaries between countries are being thoroughly abolished, to say the least. That is because such modes of production cannot be based upon backward productive forces; they require modern industry, modern science, mass politics, and transport and communication means that interconnect the whole world.

If capitalism lasts as much as to allow it to become an interplanetary system - supposing it is able to deal with the productive forces involved - then socialism in one planet will become impossible, too.

Luís Henrique

Positivist

4th July 2012, 01:38

Big massive post of it earlier on where you say 'hmmm, capitalism can be made nicer, that's almost like socialism isn't it?'

What is a state?

Engels' answer: men, armed in defence of property relations.

Marx's answer: an organ for one class to suppress another.

So, how can you have a state, which is an organ of class oppression, in defence of property relations, if there are no classes and no property?

If there is no property (ie, society is communal) then there can be no classes (so society is classless) so there can be no state (so society is stateless). The state relies on classes, and classes rely on property.

So if there is a state, there must necessarily be classes (society is not classless) and if there are classes there must necessarily be property (society is not communal).

That's why.

So I never say anything about social democracy, or improving capitalism, you just interpret what I say as congruent to such.

Yes, the state would be used to defend against the still existing bourgiose class outside of the country, and to defend the communal property relations. Common ownership is a property relation, and the external bourgiose is a class.

LuÃs Henrique

4th July 2012, 02:41

Yes, the state would be used to defend against the still existing bourgiose class outside of the country, and to defend the communal property relations. Common ownership is a property relation, and the external bourgiose is a class.

Societies can defend themselves against external enemies without having a State. The association between external defence and the State only emerges with the division of societies into classes.

Luís Henrique

jookyle

4th July 2012, 03:01

Societies can defend themselves against external enemies without having a State. The association between external defence and the State only emerges with the division of societies into classes.

Luís Henrique

This is really why Lenin makes the difference between socialism and communism in "The State and Revolution" and devotes a whole section to the "withering away of the state", Chapter one; part three and four and Chapter five; parts 2-4 adress this problem directly.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

Stalin also shared such views, this part of his interview with Roy Howard comes to mind which touches on both the subject of the thread and the relevancy of the state

Howard : Admittedly communism has not been achieved in Russia. State socialism has been built.

Have not fascism in Italy and National-Socialism in Germany claimed that they have attained similar results? Have not both been achieved at the price of privation and personal liberty, sacrificed for the good of the state?

Stalin : The term "state socialism" is inexact.

Many people take this term to mean the system under which a certain part of wealth, sometimes a fairly considerable part, passes into the hands of the state, or under its control, while in the overwhelming majority of cases the works, factories and the land remain the property of private persons. This is what many people take "state socialism" to mean. Sometimes this term covers a system under which the capitalist state, in order to prepare for, or wage war, runs a certain number of private enterprises at its own expense. The society which we have built cannot possibly be called "state socialism." Our Soviet society is socialist society, because the private ownership of the factories, works, the land, the banks and the transport system has been abolished and public ownership put in its place. The social organisation which we have created may be called a Soviet socialist organisation, not entirely completed, but fundamentally, a socialist organisation of society.

The foundation of this society is public property :

state, i.e., national, and also co-operative, collective farm property. Neither Italian fascism nor German National-"Socialism" has anything in common with such a society. Primarily, this is because the private ownership of the factories and works, of the land, the banks, transport, etc., has remained intact, and, therefore, capitalism remains in full force in Germany and in Italy.

Yes , you are right, we have not yet built communist society. It is not so easy to build such a society. You are probably aware of the difference between socialist society and communist society. In socialist society certain inequalities in property still exist. But in socialist society there is no longer unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities. In socialist society everyone is obliged to work, although he does not, in return for his labour receive according to his requirements, but according to the quantity and quality of the work he has performed. That is why wages, and, moreover, unequal, differentiated wages, still exist. Only when we have succeeded in creating a system under which, in return for their labour, people will receive from society, not according to the quantity and quality of the labour they perform, but according to their requirements, will it be possible to say that we have built communist society.

You say that in order t o build our socialist society we sacrificed personal liberty and suffered privation.

Your question suggests that socialist society denies personal liberty. That is not true. Of course, in order to build something new one must economize, accumulate resources, reduce one's consumption for a time and borrow from others. If one wants to build a house one saves up money, cuts down consumption for a time, otherwise the house would never be built.

How much more true is this when it is a matter of building a new human society? We had to cut down consumption somewhat for a time, collect the necessary resources and exert great effort. This is exactly what we did and we built a socialist society.

But we did not build this society in order to restrict personal liberty but in order that the human individual may feel really free. We built it for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks. It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.

Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm

Lev Bronsteinovich

4th July 2012, 03:06

There is no 'getting on the real track' without world revolution.

If you want to play football, and none of your mates do (to be fair, two of your mates try to come to the ground, but get shot on the way, and someone else gets hit by a car, and a few others sleep in, and some of them get the wrong day, and you forgot to tell some of the others), then, what should you do when you find youself at the park alone with a football? Why can't you play football? Well, because football needs a team (and a team to play against which is where the metaphor falls down). Likewise, socialism needs the world, you can't do it on your own.

EDIT - just this paragraph - to extend the metaphor a moment, you can of course practice 'keepie-uppies' (not with an American football, we have to be talking soccer here) but eventually, you will lose control and you'll drop the ball. Maybe not after 2 years but long before 70. Joke. You will be unlikely to keep the ball up longer than a minute or two. The dictatorship of the proletariat can certainly last longer than that. Not 70 years though.

The revolution - the world revolution of which October 1917 was a spectacular early engagement -was defeated. Not in 1991, or 1989, or 1956; it was defeated in 1919 when the German Social Democrats sent proto-Fascist paramilitaries to murder German Communists in Berlin. With the defeat of the German revolution the Russian revolution was doomed.

Rosa Luxemburg in one of the last pieces she wrote said that the Bolsheviks posed questions, but the answers could not come from Russia alone. Only the international extension of the revolution can ensure its survival. If the revolution ceases to spread it dies. Simple as.
Yes, yes. No socialism, no world revolution if the German revolution failed. Okay. But Germany did not really stabilize until mid 1924 -- there were other missed opportunities. Just because the world revolution was temporarily put on hold (a century is not really that long a time, imo) that doesn't mean that capitalism was restored in the USSR. The Bolsheviks were left with very few degrees of freedom after the world proletariat did not rapidly follow suit and overthrow their respective bourgeois states. You know this argument already, I'm sure. But if the USSR in 1928 was a capitalist country, it was like no other -- and you really have to stretch a lot to fit it in. I get that you don't like what it had become, politically - I'm with you on that. A capitalist country where the bourgeoisie has been routed and has almost no political power? Where landlords and large farmers were all expropriated, without compensation? The church was reduced to a merely spiritual presence?

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 04:59

Blake's Baby

4th July 2012, 10:32

So I never say anything about social democracy, or improving capitalism, you just interpret what I say as congruent to such.

Yes, the state would be used to defend against the still existing bourgiose class outside of the country, and to defend the communal property relations. Common ownership is a property relation, and the external bourgiose is a class.

So there are classes, property and a state. So not a 'communal classless (stateless) society'.

So not socialism, and not 'having socialist characteristics', unless by 'socialist characteristics' you mean 'capitalism administered with a social welfare programme' ie social democracy.

So, social democracy. That's your solution. Revolutionary welfare capitalism.

'Ooooh, oooh, we need a revolution so we can be like Sweden.'

Woop de fucking doo.

Tim Finnegan

4th July 2012, 10:43

Collectivization and the massive proletarianization of the country couldn't of happened if russia was still capitalist and if property could be exchanged freely, we would of just seen an aristocracy of peasants rise and eventually take power with Bukharin as the new Premier if the USSR was still capitalist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_capital

But the economy was run by state planners who were paid to organize the industrialization but who gained no ownership of the property they organized to be built nor did they take private property from the working class. It was more akin to taking money out of a vault when Stalin bribed the Bureaucracy with exuberant salaries.
Why does the fact that state bureaucrats did not have formal ownership of state enterprises matter when they exercised absolute control over them? You may as well say that a CEO is a proletarian as long as he owns no stock, and that a worker is bourgeois if he does. It's a total confusion of legal form with social content.

But, no, capitalism means individualistic property, entrepreneurship and the "free market", because it turns out Ayn Rand was right all along.

Hit The North

4th July 2012, 11:13

But the economy was run by state planners who were paid to organize the industrialization but who gained no ownership of the property they organized to be built nor did they take private property from the working class. It was more akin to taking money out of a vault when Stalin bribed the Bureaucracy with exuberant salaries.

So there was money and there was commodity production but there was no capitalism? How does that work?

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 17:31

Because the roman empire wasn't capitalist although it had commodity production and money. Marx never lays those ALONE as the foundation for capitalism. The question that has to be asked, is where do the profits go, and in the USSR they went back into developing the country. The bureaucracy wanted to be capitalists, they wanted to own everything, but they couldn't because of what was laid out by the revolution over capital. And yes they managed it and were paid for it, but didn't extract profits for their personal self interest or to re-invest, which I believe Marx laid down as the fundamental goal of capitalism. C-M-C was the mode, not C-M-C-M with the latter M being in Stalin's pocket. It was primitive accumulation, which would of been impossible if Capitalists were still in charge of the economy. Factories weren't built for cigarette lighters or "made in china," products, they were built for tractors, heavy machinery, weapons, all things that are to benefit the proletariat.

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 17:36

Basically since workers democracy existed, capitalism was impossible to re-establish in 1920s because of the rule of the soviets, who were held responsible, accountable, by the workers. There was no "new class," there was a caste of privelaged party officials who were the only "intellectuals," left alive by Stalin who knew how to administer the economy, and either wanted to own it or at least loot from it for their selfish interests. It was a different kind of oppression, but it wasn't capitalist, specifically.

Tim Finnegan

4th July 2012, 19:04

So it wasn't capitalism because they built tractors, but it wasn't socialism because Stalin was greedy? Grade-A analysis you've got there, Marx would be very proud.

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 20:02

Positivist

4th July 2012, 21:13

So there are classes, property and a state. So not a 'communal classless (stateless) society'.

So not socialism, and not 'having socialist characteristics', unless by 'socialist characteristics' you mean 'capitalism administered with a social welfare programme' ie social democracy.

So, social democracy. That's your solution. Revolutionary welfare capitalism.

'Ooooh, oooh, we need a revolution so we can be like Sweden.'

Woop de fucking doo.

It is interesting how you are so insecure in your views that you turn to petty attacks, and regurgitations of your former ideas that have been previously refuted.

Hopefully for the last time, a society can be established within a particular region where there are no classes, and the property relation is that of communal ownership, within that particular region. So, as I have also repeated, socialism as defined by a stateless classless communal society is impossible within one region, but a classless, communal society, free of exploitation and oppression is.

Tim Finnegan

4th July 2012, 21:25

You know it's not that simple. But (it's called an analogy) yeah they built tractors to be used for collectivization instead of building cigarette lighters which would be sold outside, which was an activity that yielded no "profit," in the capitalist sense, as in stealing labor value for private wealth. If private property was legal we'd of seen gigantic Kulak farms. All of the wealth went towards developing public property, so it was at least a DotP but not quite "socialist," since not enough wealth existed for socialism to exist. by your guys logic, since Obama is the "manager," of the military he owns the military. Or since congress commands state forces, the US congress "owns" the public property. anyways you guys are ignoring the specific things that make capitalism capitalism, and the marxist definition of "property,"
There's a conflation, here, of legal form and social content which I think represents a very slightly greater departure from the fundamentally criticalmethodology employed by Karl Marx than our scepticism towards your long-discredited OrthoTrotisms.

It is interesting how you are so insecure in your views that you turn to petty attacks, and regurgitations of your former ideas that have been previously refuted.

Hopefully for the last time, a society can be established within a particular region where there are no classes, and the property relation is that of communal ownership, within that particular region. So, as I have also repeated, socialism as defined by a stateless classless communal society is impossible within one region, but a classless, communal society, free of exploitation and oppression is.
So, again, you're a social democrat?

Per Levy

4th July 2012, 21:27

All of the wealth went towards developing public property, so it was at least a DotP but not quite "socialist," since not enough wealth existed for socialism to exist.

what? since when does DotP means "wealth went towards developing public property", i always thought the DotP meant that the proletariat was ruling things. but i guess not, so is any state in the world in part a DotP? i mean every state is using at least a bit of wealth to develope public proberty.

anyways you guys are ignoring the specific things that make capitalism capitalism, and the marxist definition of "property,"

and i thought the exploitation of the working class was at least one of the characteristics of capitalism.

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 21:38

So by all of your left communists logic, a feudal state is capitalist! We've been over this shit time and time again, exploitation and stealing labor value doesn't by itself mean capitalism. Capitalism is when private wealth is re-invested with the hope of profit. None of that happened in the USSR. State managers =/= capitalists, even if they steal money from the Gosbank. And what other definition of a proletarian economy is there other than "PUBLIC property"? Is there no difference between an economy run for profit and one run for use value? If there isn't than I guess we're shit out of luck for doing anything. by your definition, tim, a feudal society is capitalist since the king steals from the peasants. What's the difference between say the roman empire and the british? The flow of money, who controls the investments made, and who or what the profits go to.

Positivist

4th July 2012, 21:38

So, again, you're a social democrat?

Ok, so you are just going to abandon all reason and resort to your name calling again? Explain to me how holding the position that an essentially socialist system being possible in one region is social democratic. I only say 'near socialism' because if I say socialism you go "no, no its not stateless!"

I am in no way advocating a mode of production that is capitalist, but which is more comfortable for the working class. I am advocating workers management of the economy and freedom for the oppressed segments of society, and have said so repeatedly. If that's still capitalist to you, then you need to leave this site.

Geiseric

4th July 2012, 21:47

Exploitation of the working class doesn't define capitalism. Exploitation is too general a word, and exploitation happened in 1000BC. So I guess Egypt was state capitalist too! There was no flow of ownership, and investments benefit the whole proletariat as opposed to the fictional, non existant bourgeois class. you also have no alternative, since I assume you oppose the industrialisation as a whole, since that's "state capitalism."

Tim Finnegan

4th July 2012, 21:50

Ok, so you are just going to abandon all reason and resort to your name calling again? Explain to me how holding the position that an essentially socialist system being possible in one region is social democratic. I only say 'near socialism' because if I say socialism you go "no, no its not stateless!"

I am in no way advocating a mode of production that is capitalist, but which is more comfortable for the working class. I am advocating workers management of the economy and freedom for the oppressed segments of society, and have said so repeatedly. If that's still capitalist to you, then you need to leave this site.
You're advocating generalised commodity production, "but, like, nice". If that's still socialism to you, then, well, I suppose you should probably stay, because you're in perfect company around here.

Exploitation of the working class doesn't define capitalism. Exploitation is too general a word, and exploitation happened in 1000BC. So I guess Egypt was state capitalist too! There was no flow of ownership, and investments benefit the whole proletariat as opposed to the fictional, non existant bourgeois class. you also have no alternative, since I assume you oppose the industrialisation as a whole, since that's "state capitalism."
How can there have been a proletariat in the fSU if there was no bourgeoisie? The two are mutually constituting.

Positivist

4th July 2012, 22:14

You're advocating generalised commodity production, "but, like, nice". If that's still socialism to you, then, well, I suppose you should probably stay, because you're in perfect company around here.

How do I advocate generalized commodity production? Commodity production involves exchange for a payment. I am not advocating this, and am curious as to how you believe that I am.

Lev Bronsteinovich

4th July 2012, 22:54

So there are classes, property and a state. So not a 'communal classless (stateless) society'.

So not socialism, and not 'having socialist characteristics', unless by 'socialist characteristics' you mean 'capitalism administered with a social welfare programme' ie social democracy.

So, social democracy. That's your solution. Revolutionary welfare capitalism.

'Ooooh, oooh, we need a revolution so we can be like Sweden.'

Woop de fucking doo.
It's not social democracy -- in Sweden or Norway there is still private ownership of the means of production -- this is the qualitative difference. No landlords, no capitalists, no investment bankers.

It is not socialism, of course, but it is the dictatorship of the proletariat. And I know, it was a very contradictory instance, as the proletariat was politically disenfranchised by the bonapartist, stalinist, bureaucracy.

A Marxist Historian

4th July 2012, 23:55

what? since when does DotP means "wealth went towards developing public property", i always thought the DotP meant that the proletariat was ruling things. but i guess not, so is any state in the world in part a DotP? i mean every state is using at least a bit of wealth to develope public proberty.

and i thought the exploitation of the working class was at least one of the characteristics of capitalism.

The fundamental characteristic of capitalism is a capitalist class that doesn't merely "control" the means of production, but owns them.

Marx, in Das Kapital vol. 1, Chapter XVI, "Absolute and Relative Surplus Value," http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch16.htm

makes this distinction clear. As he explains, in the early stages of capitalism, it in fact is the workers who control the means of production, it isn't really until you have the Industrial Revolution that day to day control over the means of production shifts from the workers to the capitalists, who initially let the workers run the workshops and just take their profits.

But that never matters, 'cuz the capitalists are the owners, the social surplus isn't just controlled by them, they get it, they own it, it goes into their pockets, and then they can decide what to do with it, reinvest it, spend it, whatever they please.

This was not the case in the USSR, which is why the children of Brezhnev's bureaucrats wanted to overthrow the Soviet system and re-establish capitalism, so that they could actually own the factories, and run them if they wanted to make a profit, or ship off all the Soviet wealth to Swiss banks if they didn't want to bother. Which they did under Yeltsin, constituting a brand new capitalist class.

No capitalist class, no capitalism. Now there is one, before 1991 there wasn't, as anybody with even the faintest knowledge of Soviet and ex-Soviet reality is aware.

-M.H.-

Blake's Baby

4th July 2012, 23:59

'It's not social democracy' - even though what Positivist is talking about is the nationalisation of the economy, ie social democracy - and you're saying that it's also not socialism but it is the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I agree it's not socialism.

It might be the dictatroship of the proletariat. If it isn't the dictatorship of the party (ie, if the party doesn't substitute itself for the working class). But either way, the statisation of the economy is not (as you agree) socialism.

Unless you want to invent a new economic system and class society that exists between capitalism and communism, then you have to say that it's one or the other.

Me, I'm a marxist; I don't go around inventing new economic systems and defining novel class societies willy-nilly, so, as it isn't socialism, and it has states, classes, property (and, in its 'actually existing' form, wages and commodity production) then it has 'capitalist characteristics'. Because it's capitalism.

So, do you believe, as marxists do, that it was capitalism, or do you believe, as Glenn Beck does, that it was socialism, or do you invent some new system like 'a co-ordinator class society' like that guy Burnham or whoever it was who worked for the CIA?

EDIT: oh good, MH has come along to get things wrong as usual.

No, MH: 'no capitalist class, no capitalism' is a misundertanding of both Marxism and History. 'No capitalism, no capitalist class' I think is more accurate. Capitalism creates capitalists not the other wy around. Russia was capitalist; capitalists were constantly being created. They stood in a different relationship to the means of production than the workers. They were another class. So they couldn't inherit property? Shocking! It's almost like, somewhere, a form of capitalism managed to throw off some vestiges of feudalism. You'll be telling me next Russia didn't have a king either!

For a 'A Marxist Historian', I have to say that the only thing you've gotten right so far is 'A'. But perhaps there are more of you and you've gotten that wrong too.

A Marxist Historian

5th July 2012, 00:04

You're advocating generalised commodity production, "but, like, nice". If that's still socialism to you, then, well, I suppose you should probably stay, because you're in perfect company around here.

How can there have been a proletariat in the fSU if there was no bourgeoisie? The two are mutually constituting.

Who is "advocating" generalised commodity production? That commodity production existed in the USSR was a fact, impossible to avoid without a much higher level of the productive forces than existed. So industrialization was needed, that which the Left Opposition advocated and which Stalin finally came out for in his own brutal bureaucratic way.

How can there be a proletariat with no capitalist class? Depends on what you mean by that. Thje USSR was clearly not a classless socialist society, you had a peasantry, small property owners, even in Soviet kolkhozes. And you had petty capitalist merchants and traders in the 1920s, the NEPmen. Whose mechanical "liquidation" by Stalin simply meant that an underground black market grew up, which by the 1980s was corrupting Soviet society wholesale. In fact the new post-Gorbachev capitalist class stems as much or more from these gangsters and black marketeers as it does from the old Soviet bureaucracy.

So you never had a fullblown capitalist class, but lots of petty bourgeois of various sorts. Petty capitalists. Not because that was the desire of the bureaucracy that they exist, but because since you can't build socialism in one country, petty capitalists sprang up naturally.

Technically speaking, since in the last analysis Soviet the Soviet working class, as per legal doctrine and in many ways as per social reality, were the owners, though not the controllers, of state industry, they were not a "proletariat," a propertyless class.

-M.H.-

Blake's Baby

5th July 2012, 00:08

...
Technically speaking, since in the last analysis Soviet the Soviet working class, as per legal doctrine and in many ways as per social reality, were the owners, though not the controllers, of state industry, they were not a "proletariat," a propertyless class.

-M.H.-

Ah, how many qualifications do you need to put into that assertion?

Yes, they were legally owners of the state industries. As in the west there were and are all sorts of legal fictions. In class societies, laws are cant. In Soviet Russia? Cant is law.

The legal fiction is one thing, the reality was something else. I think you'll find that labour was just as alienated in Russia as elsewhere.

Per Levy

5th July 2012, 00:08

It is not socialism, of course, but it is the dictatorship of the proletariat. And I know, it was a very contradictory instance, as the proletariat was politically disenfranchised by the bonapartist, stalinist, bureaucracy.

but the proletariat was allready made powerless during the time lenin and trotsky were in power, the bureaucracy and stalin build upon what was allready established. and DotP always should mean that the proletariat rules and not a party that rules over the proletariat.

proletarian economy

whats a "proletarian economy"? i never heard that before.

Positivist

5th July 2012, 00:33

What is wrong with nationalization of private industry if it is by a state governed by the workers? Isn't that how you appropriate resources to the management and ownership of the proletariat?

Blake's Baby

5th July 2012, 00:39

but the proletariat was allready made powerless during the time lenin and trotsky were in power, the bureaucracy and stalin build upon what was allready established. and DotP always should mean that the proletariat rules and not a party that rules over the proletariat.

whats a "proletarian economy"? i never heard that before.

It's another way of saying 'the working class produces everything'. You know, capitalism.

What is wrong with nationalization of private industry if it is by a state governed by the workers? Isn't that how you appropriate resources to the management and ownership of the proletariat?

'...if...' is such a slippery word.

Am I to infer, or am I not to infer, that you think that the USSR was such a state?

Or are we talking here about Narnia, Atlantis, or the inside of the Hollow Earth?

Is this an historical question, or an academic question?

Positivist

5th July 2012, 01:16

I just typed up a long response but it was deleted for some reason so I'll summarize what I wrote.
I am speaking academically, and first proposed my thesis when this was still an academic debate.
My position is that under the DOtP, if international revolutionary movements have not sufficiently matured or have been defeated, the society should begin to transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy.
I further postulate that this peacetime economy could take on nearly all the characteristics of a socialist society given abundances and security.
This is the first time I have framed the article in the context of occurring in the period of the DOtP, so hopefully that will help clear things up.

Lucretia

5th July 2012, 01:28

Why is this thread still alive? The answer to the OP's question was easy and answered multiple times just a couple of pages into the discussion.

A Marxist Historian

5th July 2012, 02:35

Ah, how many qualifications do you need to put into that assertion?

Yes, they were legally owners of the state industries. As in the west there were and are all sorts of legal fictions. In class societies, laws are cant. In Soviet Russia? Cant is law.

The legal fiction is one thing, the reality was something else. I think you'll find that labour was just as alienated in Russia as elsewhere.

Ah yes, "alienation," New Left "early Marxism."

The problem with capitalism isn't "alienation," it's poverty, homelessness, racism, war, and in general the capitalist class squeezing the lifeblood out of the working class, and pushing society towards ruination.

As in what is going on right now in the world.

In reality, the power of the Soviet bureaucracy was dependent on the belief of the Soviet working class that it was running society in their interests. A belief that was not altogether without solid material foundation.

When that belief finally eroded away completely, under Gorbachev, the USSR collapsed like a punctured balloon.

-M.H.-

Tim Finnegan

5th July 2012, 10:29

How do I advocate generalized commodity production? Commodity production involves exchange for a payment. I am not advocating this, and am curious as to how you believe that I am.
You talk about "workers' management of the economy". That presupposes that there is such a thing as workers, i.e. labour subsumed under capital, that there is such a process as "management", i.e. the organisation of labour, and that there is such a thing as "the economy", i.e. the ideological location of production in a distinct sphere of life from consumption. All of those presuppose a generalised commodity production.

Ah yes, "alienation," New Left "early Marxism."

The problem with capitalism isn't "alienation," it's poverty, homelessness, racism, war, and in general the capitalist class squeezing the lifeblood out of the working class, and pushing society towards ruination.

As in what is going on right now in the world.
So you basically don't know what "alienation" means in Marx? Figures.

Blake's Baby

5th July 2012, 11:09

I just typed up a long response but it was deleted for some reason so I'll summarize what I wrote.
I am speaking academically, and first proposed my thesis when this was still an academic debate...

Right. Socialist Narnia. But not any real socialism anywhere real in the real world. Socialism is in our heads. Not social democracy. Religion. Gotcha.

...My position is that under the DOtP, if international revolutionary movements have not sufficiently matured or have been defeated, the society should begin to transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy...

Except the war is still going on, so they can't. See my post (no. 54, five pages ago - http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2473301&postcount=54 ) listing the five things that will actually happen to the proletarian power conviently excerpted here:

In the 'liberated territories', the working class is likely to have to work harder to:
1-make up for the shortfall of international trade as capitalism embargoes the revolutionary territory;
2-increase arms production to defend the revolutionary territory from hostile capitalist attack;
3-repair the damage that the capitalists managed to inflict on the productive forces during their local defeat;
4-export arms and munitions to the still-revolting proletariat in the countries where the revolution is proceeding;
5-while all this is going on, try to increase the material standards of the population in the revolutionary territory.

...
I further postulate that this peacetime economy could take on nearly all the characteristics of a socialist society given abundances and security...

Except this 'peacetime economy' cannot and will never exist, so it's a biut like arguing that invisible unicorns are only pink and never blue.

...
This is the first time I have framed the article in the context of occurring in the period of the DOtP, so hopefully that will help clear things up.

Well, admitting that the DotP is not socialism is a start. Now to ween you off of the idea of 'socaialist characteristics'...

LuÃs Henrique

5th July 2012, 11:10

Because the roman empire wasn't capitalist although it had commodity production and money.

Indeed, but then it was a different kind of society, built upon a different mode of production (slaverism). The problem with Russia/Soviet Union is that it certainly wasn't any kind of pre-capitalist society such as those based upon slavery or feudalism. At the stage of development of productive forces where it stood, it could only be either a capitalist or a socialist society, and so Prole Art Threat's point stands: if it there was money and production of commodities, how wasn't it capitalist?

The question that has to be asked, is where do the profits go, and in the USSR they went back into developing the country.

So do they in capitalist societies, "developing the country" being merely the bourgeois name for "accumulating capital".

And yes they managed it and were paid for it, but didn't extract profits for their personal self interest or to re-invest, which I believe Marx laid down as the fundamental goal of capitalism.

The main goal was exactly to reinvest, and they certainly took a smaller part of the excedent for their personal use, so the difference must reside elsewhere, if it actually exists.

C-M-C was the mode, not C-M-C-M with the latter M being in Stalin's pocket. It was primitive accumulation, which would of been impossible if Capitalists were still in charge of the economy.

Primitive accumulation would only be possible if capitalists where not yet in charge of the economy. If this was the case, then revolutionary Russia would be a pre-capitalist economy, a kind of "worker's mercantilism".

Factories weren't built for cigarette lighters or "made in china," products, they were built for tractors, heavy machinery, weapons, all things that are to benefit the proletariat.

They seem to me things that benefit the accumulation of capital, unless they are produced as non-commodities, and not used to the further production of commodities.

Luís Henrique

Hit The North

5th July 2012, 11:13

Ah yes, "alienation," New Left "early Marxism."

The problem with capitalism isn't "alienation," it's poverty, homelessness, racism, war, and in general the capitalist class squeezing the lifeblood out of the working class, and pushing society towards ruination.

But, for Marx (in Capital and the Grundrisse, and not only in the early philosophical work), alienation is a precondition for modern capitalism. Production for exchange, for instance, presupposes the alienation of the worker from the product of her labour. The transformation of labour power into a commodity also presupposes the alienation of the worker from her own life process. All other forms of alienation - the alienation of man from man, for instance, arises as a consequence of alienated property relations.

So all of those ills you write about above are the direct result of alienated social relations. To deny the importance of alienation is therefore to provide an analysis of capitalism that is at variance to Marx's own analysis. Perhaps it is time for you to make a name change?

Blake's Baby

5th July 2012, 11:17

... "developing the country" being merely the bourgeois name for "accumulating capital"...

Engels developed on this in the 1880s when he talks about 'the national capitalist', and how parliament ceases to be an arena for debates between factions of the bourgeoisie and becomes instead more of an executive committe of the developing national capital. This, of course, is the basis of state capitalism theory.

Geiseric

5th July 2012, 19:22

How would you get rid of commodity production? And asking what class the soviet workers are is irrelevent, I used "workers," basically to apply to the people who created value with their labor in an industrial setting, which obviously still existed, unless ghosts were running the factories. And despite what one misinformed poster said, private ownership means alot more than a "legal loophole," it means that you own stock physically for capital which no Bureaucrat did, and you guys will never find proof of a bureaucrat either investing his salary or anybody developing capital, hiring a worker, and paying him to work there. You won't find any proof because the Bureaucracy couldn't exclude anybody from working at their will in a state owned factory, since they didn't own it. I need proof about a circulation of money, and a market for exchanging ownership. state capitalism I agree existed as private property existed, but you guys are dillusional if you think it lasted past when Stalin abolished private land.

A Marxist Historian

5th July 2012, 21:22

...So you basically don't know what "alienation" means in Marx? Figures.

Sure I do. For the early Marx, "alienation" was the key form of oppression of capitalism--before he had a fully clear conception of classes and class struggle.

For the mature Marx, the alienation of the means of production from the producers is certainly a fundamental aspect of the workings of capitalism, but it's not the be-all and end-all of what's wrong with capitalism. Which is that the capitalist class misrules society in all its aspects, and its rule needs to be broken and overthrown by the working class.

New Leftists in the 1960s focussed endlessly on Marx's writings on alienation because they did not see the working class as the key revolutionary factor.

-M.H.-

Tim Finnegan

5th July 2012, 22:04

Blake's Baby

5th July 2012, 23:57

How would you get rid of commodity production? ...

How would you sustain it?

Blake's Baby

7th July 2012, 00:30

...
New Leftists in the 1960s focussed endlessly on Marx's writings on alienation because they did not see the working class as the key revolutionary factor...

Ah, just noticed this particular turd lurking at the bottom the cess-pit.

Yet again: A? No, others agree. Marxist? No, fail on that score too. Historian? I think not. Strike three, you're out. You are the Holy Roman Empire and I claim my £5 reward.

Why is the working class the revolutionary subject? Because of our place in production. Why is production so important in capitalism? Because of alienation. The social creation of wealth (by the working class), coupled to its limited expropration, is what prevents the social wealth being used collectivelyt for the social good. It is property (ie the economic basis of the class system, which in this epoch is capitalism) that creates alienation.

Why? Because the bourgeoisie expropriates the labour power of the working class and alienates our products; the bourgeoisie can enjoy a life of leisurely pursuit of its own creative endeavours (is it our fault if they buy diamonds and worry about what the neighbours think and have affairs with each other instead?) while the working class, having had our time and energy transformed into a commodity that we must barter to survive, are reduced to machine appendiges devoid of creativity.

Alienation is utterly central to the role of working class in capitalism and the reasons for our status as the revolutionary subject. Any 'marxist' who doesn't understand that just doesn't get it.

Close the door on your way out.

A Marxist Historian

7th July 2012, 00:58

Ah, just noticed this particular turd lurking at the bottom the cess-pit.

Yet again: A? No, others agree. Marxist? No, fail on that score too. Historian? I think not. Strike three, you're out. You are the Holy Roman Empire and I claim my £5 reward.

Why is the working class the revolutionary subject? Because of our place in production. Why is production so important in capitalism? Because of alienation. The social creation of wealth (by the working class), coupled to its limited expropration, is what prevents the social wealth being used collectivelyt for the social good. It is property (ie the economic basis of the class system, which in this epoch is capitalism) that creates alienation.

Why? Because the bourgeoisie expropriates the labour power of the working class and alienates our products; the bourgeoisie can enjoy a life of leisurely pursuit of its own creative endeavours (is it our fault if they buy diamonds and worry about what the neighbours think and have affairs with each other instead?) while the working class, having had our time and energy transformed into a commodity that we must barter to survive, are reduced to machine appendiges devoid of creativity.

Alienation is utterly central to the role of working class in capitalism and the reasons for our status as the revolutionary subject. Any 'marxist' who doesn't understand that just doesn't get it.

Close the door on your way out.

Yawn. A remarkably ignorant and self-satisfied posting.

Hardly even worth answering, but I will anyway.

Yeah, the whole trouble with capitalism is that workers don't get to be creative at work.

Why is the working class the revolutionary subject? 'cuz we don't get to run the widget factories and would like to?

No.

As Marx explained in the Communist Manifesto, it's because the working class is the only class in society with an objective interest in getting rid of capitalism and establishing a whole new social system, socialism. It has, objectively, nothing to lose but its chains, unlike all shades of the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, etc. etc.

The reason that humanity needs to get rid of capitalism and go to socialism, something that, objectively, only the rule of the working class over society couyld accomplish, is that capitalism no longer advances society, as it did even in Marx's time. Instead, it leads to the descent of all four horsemen of the Apocalypse on humanity, war, racism, poverty, social disintegration, ecological catastrophe, you name it.

Anybody who reads the newspapers should know exactly what I mean. Human society is heading straight to the toilet under capitalist rule, and Blake's Baby is obsessing about "alienation."

Hell, William Blake knew better than that, 200 years ago.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

7th July 2012, 01:08

Indeed, but then it was a different kind of society, built upon a different mode of production (slaverism). The problem with Russia/Soviet Union is that it certainly wasn't any kind of pre-capitalist society such as those based upon slavery or feudalism. At the stage of development of productive forces where it stood, it could only be either a capitalist or a socialist society, and so Prole Art Threat's point stands: if it there was money and production of commodities, how wasn't it capitalist?

So do they in capitalist societies, "developing the country" being merely the bourgeois name for "accumulating capital".

The main goal was exactly to reinvest, and they certainly took a smaller part of the excedent for their personal use, so the difference must reside elsewhere, if it actually exists.

Primitive accumulation would only be possible if capitalists where not yet in charge of the economy. If this was the case, then revolutionary Russia would be a pre-capitalist economy, a kind of "worker's mercantilism".

They seem to me things that benefit the accumulation of capital, unless they are produced as non-commodities, and not used to the further production of commodities.

Luís Henrique

There's been a lot of talk here about "legal fictions," but considering all those tons of steel and tractors and so forth as commodities is indeed just that, a legal fiction. They weren't produced to be sold in a market and a profit made, they were produced for practical material reasons, to build more factories, farm the land and so forth. Soviet central planning worked fundamentally on "material balance" principles, not profit "khozraschet," which was exactly a useful legal fiction for accounting purposes, really a measure of how efficient Soviet bureaucrats were to determine whether they should be promoted or demoted.

Sure, soviet enterprises sold them to each other and even registered "profits" on paper, but that didn't mean a thing, as you had only one owner, the state, exchanging products with itself. So they just weren't commodities, except when sold abroad.

As for consumer goods, they were exchanged for Soviet rubles, which weren't altogether money, as money, as Marx defines it, is abstract exchange value, and Soviet rubles could not be used to purchase capital and therefore could not become capital, and moreover were often worthless abroad. The Soviet ruble was a transitional form in between actual money and labor certificates, just as the Soviet economy was transitional in between capitalism and socialism.

A ruble can't represent exchange value if it can't be exchanged. Which is why it was impossible under the Soviet system for money to turn into capital.

-M.H.-

Geiseric

7th July 2012, 01:53

The dimensions of ownership means that a single person gets profits from the amount he owns, and that simply didn't happen in the USSR thus it wasn't capitalist in any point. What else are you going to produce except for commodities when it's still necessary to sell one's labor for what's needed to live? Everything couldn't of been given away for free since there wasn't abundance of any sort, so some kind of exchange was necessary. However nobody owned anything and didn't sell it themselves, ever. The workers state handled all of the distribution, what meant that profit for personal ownership was an impossibility.

Tim Finnegan

7th July 2012, 10:48

Blake's Baby

7th July 2012, 11:08

...

Yeah, the whole trouble with capitalism is that workers don't get to be creative at work...

Oh, did I say the 'whole' trouble with capitalism? I must have missed that bit.

But the enslavement of the working class is a pretty important trouble with capitalism. If it wasn't, there really wouldn't be a socialist project at all.

...
As Marx explained in the Communist Manifesto, it's because the working class is the only class in society with an objective interest in getting rid of capitalism and establishing a whole new social system, socialism. It has, objectively, nothing to lose but its chains, unlike all shades of the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, etc. etc...

But you don't know why it has an objective interest in doing so. It has an interest in doing so precisely because at present the working class is the class that produces all social wealth and is yet dispossessed of that social wealth through expropriation. We create but not on our own terms. Expropriation of surplus labour is alienation.

I was going to say there's nothing mystical about it; but that's not quite true. There is however a materialist explanation. If you think alienation is only spiritual or psychological, then... yet again you're demonstrating that you only understand a tiny fraction of what you claim to be expert in. You're one of the three blind men who is describing the elephant and decides it's asnake because all he can feel is the trunk.

Wake up. Expand your horizons. Raise your game.

...The reason that humanity needs to get rid of capitalism and go to socialism, something that, objectively, only the rule of the working class over society couyld accomplish, is that capitalism no longer advances society, as it did even in Marx's time. Instead, it leads to the descent of all four horsemen of the Apocalypse on humanity, war, racism, poverty, social disintegration, ecological catastrophe, you name it...

A paragraph that I have no problems in agreeing with so I'll just say, absolutely, I agree.

...Anybody who reads the newspapers should know exactly what I mean. Human society is heading straight to the toilet under capitalist rule, and Blake's Baby is obsessing about "alienation."

Hell, William Blake knew better than that, 200 years ago.

-M.H.-

Funny, Blake's entire project was to point out what fully-rounded creative human beings could be. Yet again you get an 'F' for history.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

9th July 2012, 12:12

Why are personal profits necessary for it to be capitalism? Are you saying that, e.g. WalMart would not be a capitalist enterprise if it had no stockholders, and that all profits were managed directly by the corporation? Again, what you're sketching here is an essentially Hayekian theory of capitalism.

Motive. The corporation is made up of people - shareholders, executive capitalists whose remuneration packages often follow a one way street, i.e. as their share awards go up, so does their salary.

You are right, insofar as corporate profit itself is enough to capture the existence of Capitalism, but it's also important to remember that profit and power are the motives behind Capitalism, not merely the teleological idea that a proto-robotic corporation wants to suck the blood of the entire economy (though this too is an image that can be captured from corporate/financial Capitalism, but it's not necessarily the whole truth).

Tim Finnegan

9th July 2012, 12:40

I'm afraid I don't really follow. What I claim is that capitalism is not defined by the presence or absence of legally private profits, but by the social relations of wage labour; that the extraction of value by state bureaucrats is fundamentally no different to the extraction of value by businessjerks. Is that incorrect?

Blake's Baby

11th July 2012, 13:31

Motive... it's also important to remember that profit and power are the motives behind Capitalism, not merely the teleological idea that a proto-robotic corporation wants to suck the blood of the entire economy (though this too is an image that can be captured from corporate/financial Capitalism, but it's not necessarily the whole truth).

No, I don't think this is the case.

Capitalism can be capitalism even if the capitalists are benign and well-meaning. They can be 'power hungry', or maybe just hungry. 'Motive' doesn't come into it.

Capitalism is a system, rather than a behaviour (not true of course, it is a behaviour, which is why there were capitalists, but not a generalised capitalist system, in Ancient Greece); but capitalists don't create capitalism, capitalism creates capitalists (that is, a few people exhibiting certain behaviour, like Greek independent traders, don't create a system, instead the system forces people to adopt certain behaviour, like revolutionising production methods rather than being bought out by competitors).

'Proto-robotic corporations' don't 'want' to suck the lifeblood out of the economy, they have to suck the lifeblood out of the economy - they can't do anything else. It's how they survive and grow. This isn't a moral question (about the motives of the participants) but a technical one about the systems in place. How could a corporation do otherwise? Only by functioning badly. A 'bad' (not fit for purpose) corporartion is one that cannot eat its competitors; a 'good' corporation is one that takes to itself greater and greater economic power by controlling more of the economy, more and more surplus labour.

Geiseric

12th July 2012, 19:13

Lucretia

12th July 2012, 19:29

Yes tim there is a huge difference, especially since wages weren't extracted and used for any private person's accumulation of wealth. The money was only worth anything inside the USSR and nobody could invest it or employ anybody with it. Higher salaries were paid to bureaucrats but that could only be used to buy commodities.

The Russian currency, along with Russian goods, crossed international boundaries and were not part of some isolated, shut-in autarky as your "money was only worth anything inside the USSR" comment suggests. You're making the very mistake Trotsky criticized when he talked of Russia's subordination to the international division of labor and trade requiring a need for an internationalist approach to revolution.

Now when considering the question of whether that currency represented some portion of collectively produced value that the bureaucracy was attempting to accumulate for the sake of competition, we need to keep in mind that capitalism is not defined on the basis of -- and indeed does not require -- the "private accumulation of wealth." It is defined on the basis of production for the competitive accumulation of wealth. Whether or not those doing the accumulating are "private" individuals, "privately owned" corporations, or entire nation-states does not alter one iota the underlying relations of production or the laws of motion governing the economic system. This is meme about "private ownership" and "private appropration" is a favorite among Ortho-Trots, but when challenged, they cannot provide a single quote or provide a single line of logic linking private appropriation to the essence of capitalism. On the other hand, a surfeit of evidence exists that all the major classical Marxist thinkers, including Marx and Engels themselves, saw capitalism as being perfectly compatible with state accumulation rather than "private" accumulation.

At any rate, your comments contradict themselves. On the one hand you falsely claim that capitalism requires private appropriation of or accumulation of wealth, then on the other you concede that the bureaucrats did indeed, as individuals, "privately" accumulate considerable wealth in any event, which places them firmly within the "private capitalist accumulators" realm you falsely deem to be a requirement of capitalism.